tepatia (CST39)
This is an iconographic example of the verb, tepatia, to work to heal people. The scene shows a man administering green (probably herbal) medicine to a person lying down and covered with a blanket. The medicine appears to have been put on the person’s forehead, perhaps like a plaster. The sick person has some of the medicine on his own hand. Both of his arms are raised. He is probably ill from the epidemic of this period.
Stephanie Wood
The companion text notes that 50 pesos were paid to all the people who work in the hospitals who are trying to cure people, including healers (ticitl), women, and macehuales (perhaps commoner males). [See Kevin Terraciano, Codex Sierra, 2021, pp. 124 and 157.] This was a time of raging epidemics as a result of germs inadvertently brought over from Europe with colonization. With no immunities, the Indigenous population was hit extremely hard.
Stephanie Wood
tepatia
tepatia
1550–1564
Jeff Haskett-Wood
curandero, médico, medicinas, hospitales, epidemias, cocoxqui
tepatia, to cure people, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepatia
curar o cuidar a la gente enferma
Stephanie Wood
Códice Sierra-Texupan, plate 39, page dated 1561. Origin: Santa Catalina Texupan, Mixteca Alta, State of Oaxaca. Kevin Terraciano has published an outstanding study of this manuscript (Codex Sierra, 2021), and in his book he refers to alphabetic and “pictorial” writing, not hieroglyphic writing. We are still counting some of the imagery from this source as hieroglyphic writing, but we are also including examples of “iconography” where the images verge on European style illustrations or scenes showing activities. We have this iconography category so that such images can be fruitfully compared with hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphic writing was evolving as a result of the influence of European illustrations, and even alphabetic writing impacted it.
https://bidilaf.buap.mx/objeto.xql?id=48281&busqueda=Texupan&action=search
The Biblioteca Digital Lafragua of the Biblioteca Histórica José María Lafragua in Puebla, Mexico, publishes this Códice Sierra-Texupan, 1550–1564 (62pp., 30.7 x 21.8 cm.), referring to it as being in the “Public Domain.” This image is published here under a Creative Commons license, asking that you cite the Biblioteca Digital Lafragua and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.
