pinahuiztli (FCbk11f225r)

This iconographic example, featuring either a Jerusalem cricket or a beetle taken as an omen (pinahuitzli), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. This example shows a cricket in profile, facing left. It hovers above a river. Its body is segmented, and the body has some shading that gives it a three-dimensionality. In the context, the insect is included as a clue to the name of the type of river, pinahuizatl. It is rather glyph-like, so that when combined with the water, it is like a compound hieroglyph. This is true, too, of the river called tecuanatl, painted on the same page with the head of a jaguar-type feline hovering over that river.