tlatlatzini (FCbk11f178r)

This iconographic example, featuring a visual that expresses thunder and/or lightning (the verb, tlatlatzini), 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. Anderson and Dibble, the translators, treat tlatlatzini as both “to thunder” and for “lightning to strike.” The image shows what looks like a stream of flames coming down from the sky to the ground, probably more a lightning strike than a thunder roll. The contextualizing image shows a man wearing a long-sleeved shirt (European-inspired) and a cape (Indigenous, a tilmatli) over that, holding a digging stick (huictli), after having dug up a large stone (quiyauhteocuitlatl) that apparently fell from the sky at the time when lightning struck or the sky thundered. Perhaps this was a meteor. The nearby text discusses a remedy for someone who had been flashed by lightning. The remedy can include another stone, the xiuhtomoltetl.