Tlacatecolotl (MH641r)

Translations for this unusual name, Tlacatecolotl (which literally means Person-Owl), are often influenced or affected by the lens of the missionaries who wrote the sixteenth-century vocabularies. In our Online Nahuatl Dictionary, one sees translations such as: witch, devil, and demon. A more just translation might have been a native person practicing pre-Columbian religion in colonial times. The rarity of the name is commensurate, perhaps, with the fact that such a person might have had to live a somewhat clandestine life.

Another example of a Tlacatecolotl has been published from the Codex Laud by Dumbarton Oaks, under the title "Sorcery." Examples of the tecolotl (simply owl) and cuauhtecolotl (eagle-owl) often have it with a frontal view of the face, whereas birds (and most people) are typically shown in profile. Frontal views of faces are more common in the representations of the nenetl (deity sculpture or doll). The cuauhtecolotl has similar, squared-off ears or horns like the nenetl. One example of the cuauhtecolotl has short lines emanating from its eyes in way that suggests something supernatural.