mitl (Mdz40r)
This element has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Mitzinco. This arrow or dart (mitl) is red and yellow (the 1/3 that is pointed is red, and the back end is red, with the middle portion being yellow). Attached to the yellow portion are some elements that are black-line drawings in white and gray and white.
Stephanie Wood
In other representations of arrows, one can see long brown eagle feathers and what appear to be small white down feathers, possibly shaped as balls. But sometimes, such as in this case, the long feathers (wing feathers?) appear to be gray. Eagle feathers would bring a warrior significance. It is also worth mentioning that this mitl image can represent the word acatl) in some glyphs, apparently because arrows could be made from canes or reeds.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
arrows, weapons, flechas, acatl, carrizo, caña, cane, reeds
mi(tl), arrow, dart, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mitl
dart, arrow
la flecha o el dardo
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 40 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 90 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).
