quecholli (Mdz42r)
This element has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Quecholac. It shows a cluster of wing and down feathers, probably from the quecholli bird, whose feathers were important in rituals associated with the 20-day month (veintena in Spanish) of the same name.
Stephanie Wood
The divine force or deity called Chantico includes a quecholli (warrior's feather ornament) in her headdress. (See below.) As Eloise Quiñones Keber {Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 1995, 186) notes, this female figure wears both a skirt and a loincloth, the latter being a "martial attribute" that complicates the gendering of her representation.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood, Xitlali Torres
headdresses, tocados, feathers, plumas
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/quecholli42rbirdwithrichfeathersQuecholac.jpeg?itok=eZbcLPdZ)
(un pájaro con plumas ricas)
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 42 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 94 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).