petlatl (MH484r)
This black-line drawing of the element carved from the compound sign for the personal name, Petlacatl. It shows a horizontal, rectangular, woven mat (petlatl).
Stephanie Wood
The petlatl has many uses, such as for sleeping, covering dirt or wooden floors, shaping into throne-seats, wrapping the deceases, and much more. The metaphor, in icpalli in petlatl referred to the realm of authority of a ruler and the rulership itself. The pepechtli can have similar meanings and uses, although it more commonly refers to beds or foundations, and after horses were re-introduced into the Americas, it came to refer to saddles and riding tack. See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Stephanie Wood
woven mats, petates, esteras, blandos de espadañas
This petlacoatl (serpent mat), or “slab of interlaced serpents,” was found near the image of Coyolxauhqui at the Templo Mayor. It gets its name owing to its resemblance to the pattern of the petlatl, woven mat. This is a sculpture in stone that is covered with stucco. Heads and rattler tails are still evident, as is the red coloring of the background. Photograph by Stephanie Wood, Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City, 15 February 2023.
petla(tl), reed, mat, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/petlatl
la estera, o el petate
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=45&st=image.
This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).
