tlapallacuiloa (FCbk11f216v)

This iconographic example, featuring a man about to write or paint using the red color from cochineal (involving the verb, tlapallacuiloa), 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 Nahua man preparing to paint or write on what appears to be paper put together from four vertical strips or else folded into four sections. Anderson and Dibble translate the man’s activity as painting, and on folio 221 verso, they translate tlapallacuiloloni as a “medium for…coloring.” Here, the tool for painting or writing is not a European paintbrush (an image in the DFC that is exceedingly rare), but more like the instruments used for writing (both in the DFC and in this hieroglyphic collection,more generally). The man’s clothing and the building behind him have shading that creates a three-dimensionality, something learned from the colonizers. The cochineal insects that produce the red dye can be found in the contextualizing image.