tetica miqui (FCbk8f27r)
This iconographic example, featuring the stoning of one person by another is an actin described in the nearby text as tetica miqui (he dies from stoning). Another verb that could have been used for this, drawing from the Online Nahuatl Dictionary and the visual evidence, could be momotla (to stone someone). This example shows one man on the ground on all fours, and a large stone is hitting the back of his head and neck. Red blood is spattering. His hands are tied (probably with a mecatl). Another man is standing over him, about to throw another stone at the man on the ground. The man on the ground is not dead yet (his eyes and mouth are open, teeth visible), but the text speaks of an execution. He only wears a white loincloth, visible from the waistband. The executioner wears a white cloak with gray shading that gives it a three-dimensionality. The stones are glyph-like, with their curving diagonal stripes through their middles. As is found here and there in this manuscript, changes to the drawing of the standing were made with a white paint and then redrawn and painted.
Stephanie Wood
This execution is one in a series, which also shows a strangulation and someone being hit on the head with a tree trunk or large branch.
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
herida, heridas, lesión, lesiones, pegar, matar, muerte, morir, ejecutar, ejecución, sangre, eztli, paliza, escarmiento, castigo

te(tl), stone(s), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
tetica, with a stone or stones, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetica
miqui, to die, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/miqui
momotla, to stone someone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/momotla
morir por piedras, o apedrear
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 8: Kings and Lords", fol. 27r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/8/folio/27r/images/0 Accessed 9 August 2025.
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.”
