totolin (FCbk11f56v)

This iconographic example, featuring a turkey hen (totolin), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the Nahuatl text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows a profile view (facing right) of what seems to be a turkey hen. She is standing, but her left foot is raised, suggesting that she is in motion. Her feathers are a mottled gray and black, with some faintly discernible stripes. She has a short snood, with small spiky feathers across the top of her head. Below her beak is a red wattle. She appears to wear a beaded necklace, made from small but graduated beads (not colored). Perhaps this necklace is symbolic of the caruncles that turkeys have at their necks naturally. Her claws appear long and sharp. The contextualizing image shows that she is facing a huexolotl (or huehxolotl), which is more obviously a male turkey, with large wings pointing downward and a large tail fan of feathers. The image of the totolin on folio 57r underlines that she is a female, because she is surrounded by her brood. The text notes that turkeys provide the best meat (food) of all birds native to this part of the world.