petlatl (MH484r)
This black-line drawing of the element carved from the compound sign for the personal name, Petlacatl. It shows a horizontal, rectangular, woven mat (petlatl).
Stephanie Wood
The petlatl has many uses, such as for sleeping, covering dirt or wooden floors, shaping into throne-seats, wrapping the deceases, and much more. The metaphor, in icpalli in petlatl referred to the realm of authority of a ruler and the rulership itself. The pepechtli can have similar meanings and uses, although it more commonly refers to beds or foundations, and after horses were re-introduced into the Americas, it came to refer to saddles and riding tack. See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Stephanie Wood
woven mats, petates, esteras, blandos de espadañas
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/petlatl_MH483r_AtomicFromNamePetlacalcatl.png?itok=klWp852R)
petla(tl), reed, mat, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/petlatl
la estera, o el petate
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=45&st=image.
This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/Petlacalcatl_MH483r_Context.png)