teiyemaca (FCbk4f69r)

This is an iconographic example of the verb teiyemaca (to give a gift of tobacco), which involves the verb maca (to give) and iyetl (tobacco). It is a tube of a yellow color, and about ⅗ of the surface is dark gray. This must be the area that is stuffed with a roll of dried tobacco leaves. It is thicker than the tube itself, which suggests a considerable quantity of dried leaves. The contextualizing image here shows that this tobacco tube/reed/cane is being presented by a man who is standing to a man who is sitting. Both men wear capes, the standing man’s cape has a mesh pattern. Both capes are primarily white with red borders and red accents. They also have shading that gives them a three-dimensionality. The context is a fiesta celebrating the birth of a baby. Another image on the same page of the codex shows two tobacco tubes lying horizontally on two braziers. The tip away from the handle is red and smoke curls come out of the tubes at the end that is on fire. This may suggest they were burned for the aroma in this case, rather than smoked by sucking on the tube. But perhaps the tubes lie resting between puffs. In this same Book 4, folio 69v, a woman gives a gift of a burning tube (with smoke curls) to another woman, which seems to suggest the use of these tubes was not gendered.