zozo (FCbk11f49v)

This iconographic example, featuring a mouse and a lizard impaled (involving the verb zozo) on the tips of the maguey plant, 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, per se, and the text states “quinçoço” (quinzozo), it impaled them, with the added object pronoun. It was apparently the bird known as the tetzompan mamana that would carry its prey into the air and drop them onto the sharp points of the maguey. The text describes the rodent and reptile as the bird’s catch (imalhuan). Surprisingly, the text says this act was carried out after the bird had eaten and was satiated. But, rather, one might imagine that this was a way of quickly killing the captives in order to eat them.