teonanacatl (FCbk11f142v)

teonanacatl (FCbk11f142v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a group of medicinal hallucinogenic mushrooms (teonanacatl), 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 group of five light-brown mushrooms with large flat caps. Above the mushrooms, floating in the air, is what appears to be an image of an anthropomorphic bird (which the DFC keywording team refers to as a tlacatecolotl, human-owl, which Christians interpreted as the Devil). This figure seems to represent the teo- (divine) starting letters to the name of these mushrooms, which does not align with the Christian teachings.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

One can do a Quick Search for teotl to see a variety of ways it appears in this digital collection. This collection also has a few iconographic examples and hieroglyphs of the tlacatecolotl that could be compared to the one in this mushroom example. Finally, there is only one example of a nanacatl so far (November 2025), and this is not necessarily a teonanacatl. See below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

teunanacatl

Gloss/Text Normalization:

teonanacatl

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Birds

Food, Eating, Cooking

Health, Medicine

Plants, Flora

Religion (Indigenous)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Keywords:

champiñón, champiñón, hongo, psicodélico, medicinal, fiebres

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

teonanaca(tl), a hallucinogenic mushroom that can also reduce fevers, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/teonanacatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

los hongos alucinógenos que pueden curar la fiebre

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 142v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/142v/images/0 Accessed 16 November 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse.”

Orthography:

"u" for o

Historical Contextualizing Image: