Totomochtli (FCbk8f9v)

Totomochtli (FCbk8f9v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This simplex glyph for the personal name Totomochtli (dried corn husk, and in the reverential name form, Totomochtzin) shows a frontal view of a fan of dried corn husks framed at the bottom by green leaves tied together. The ancestral name may have been apocopated as Totomoch, which is still also a name found today among Nahuas. The man associated with this name glyph is shown sitting on a tied bundle of reeds (a tolicpalli or acacpalli), and he wears an animal skin cape that connects him to the Chichimeca culture. His loincloth belt is sky blue, and he has a feathered headdress held on with a green strap and decorated with a large flower.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

A fan such as this one may have been used in religious ceremonies, including in dances. In modern times, the artist Fernando Laposse uses what he calls totomoxtle to create an art medium from corn husks, and this business is having a positive impact on rural farming in the Mixtec town of Santo Domingo Tonahuixtla, Puebla. [See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r08iXfJ-CM.] Contemporary corn-husk dresses and fans are still found today in festivals. [See, for example, https://ar.pinterest.com/pin/462252349275150115/.] While glyphs of this name have yet to be duplicated in this collection (as of July 2025), there are glyphs of various kinds of maize that show husks still on the cobs. Strips made from husks probably also tied tamales together. See some examples below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

Totomochtzin

Gloss Normalization:

Totomochtzin

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Agriculture, Gardens, Stock Raising

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Plants, Flora

Politics, Power, Governance

Religion (Indigenous)

Social Hierarchy, Commoners, Elites

Textiles, Clothing, Hats, Regalia

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

green (light)

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

tied, bound, or bundled

Keywords:

maíz, cáscara, cáscaras, hides, gobernador, gobernadores, gobernantes, gobernante, tlatoani, tlahtoani, tlatoque, tlahtohqueh, teuctli, tecuhtli, nombres famosos, nombres de hombres

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

totomox(tli), dried corn husk(s), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/totomochtli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

Cáscara de Maíz

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 8: Kings and Lords", fol. 9v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/8/folio/9v/images/6442e3e4-d01... Accessed 28 July 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

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.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: