Toztimal (MH560r)

Perhaps this person is yellow and pussy because he is sick from epidemic disease, which was prevalent in the sixteenth century. The reclining posture and being wrapped with a blanket may suggest this.

It could also be worth exploring whether bodily excretions have a significance as something of value or importance in life. Teocuitlatl (divine excrement), or gold, is highly valued. The excretions from the bumps on toads were awe-inspiring for their venom, but they were used in some rituals to bring people to a hallucinogenic state. The toad "stores a highly toxic substance to protect it from its enemies. Native shamans knew of this substance’s properties and used it to prepare a ritual dream-making drug." [This remark is published in Mexicolore and draws from Aztecs (Royal Academy of Arts exhibition catalogue, London, 2002), p. 415.] The quincunx shape to the sore here suggests that an excretion of pus might have a relationship to the cosmos. Pustules, of course, were also ominous when associated with smallpox and other epidemic diseases that swept through New Spain in the sixteenth century. Furthermore, the vivifying force of tonalli "could escape through openings in the body" (Caplan, 2020, 386), and so perhaps this sore would be a cause of great concern.

In the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca of 1598, Tezozomoc mentions a Toltec named Timal, who was known to have super necromantic powers. Oxford defines necromantic as "relating to witchcraft or black magic, especially the supposed practice of communicating with the dead." [Wimmer 2004 quoted Tezozomoc, and this is published in the Gran Diccionario Náhuatl, https://gdn.iib.unam.mx/diccionario/timal/175522.] The religious prejudice in choosing the term should not overshadow the take-away that Timal was perceived to have special religious or ritual abilities, which may enter into the glyphs for the name Timal, taken by various men of central Mexico perhaps in honor of the famous Toltec man, "Pus," who possibly used deadly excretions to help people reach a risky dream-like state.