michin (Mdz46r)
This element showing a fish (michin) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Michapan. This fish is smooth, without scales (while some other fish do have scales, see below, right). This fish is painted a light purple or gray, with a white belly. It has fins on the side, top, and bottom of its body, which is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's right. Its tail is bifurcated. Its eye is open. The small amount of turquoise blue on the lower fin is inadvertent; it comes from the water that was carved away in making this element for a separate entry of its own.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Xitlali Torres
fish, peces
michin. This fish is one of a series of small images of aquatic life now on display in the Museo del Templo Mayor. It may represent a white fish (iztac michin), "whose flesh was a delicacy [among the Mexica] identified as that of the Atherindae...family." Alternatively, it could be an image of a member "of the Goodeidae...family, which were more abundant species with wider distribution in the Basin of Mexico." Photograph by Robert Haskett, Museo del Templo Mayor, 15 February 2023.
mich(in), fish, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/michin
fish
Codex Mendoza, folio 46 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 102 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
