Quiyauh (Verg26v)

The name Quiyauh appears at least nine times in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, showing how this Nahua name occurred across regions. Being a day sign in the 260-day religious divinatory calendar (the tonalpohualli) accounts for its broad popularity, along with the centrality of rain for subsistence agriculture. Water droplets were equated in some ways with the precious green stone (chalchihuitl), and some rain signs are painted a turquoise blue. Because this is a day sign, sometimes it is found with a numerical companion (from 1 to 13), which also came from the calendar. This practice, however, was likely suppressed to appease the colonial clergy, who tried to discourage the use of the old calendar. If this manuscript is as early as many believe, it would probably not be likely that this was a case of forgetting the iconography. Serious events in Tetzcoco in 1539 may have made Nahua tlacuilos more cautious when writing and painting about aspects of their faith. See Patricia Lopes Don for information about the Inquisition case against don Carlos Ometochtli, a Chichimecatecuhtli executed in late 1539, in Bonfires of Culture, 2010. Bradley Benton (The Lords of Tetzcoco, 2017, 46) also writes that the case “demonstrates that blatant disregard for Christianity had serious consequences.”