nochtli (Mdz2r)
This element of a cactus fruit (nochtli) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Tenoch. The fruit sits atop a part of the cactus plant. The fruit is bulb-shaped and has a blossom at the top. The cactus plant is green with spines of red and white. The fruit is green, and the blossom above it is red and yellow.
Stephanie Wood
A bit of the cactus plant (nopalli) shows below the fruit. This may be intended to give the fruit some context, so that it would not be mistaken as just a blossom. The spines of the cactus have the same coloring as the spines of the huixachin. Their red and white coloring also ties them to some examples of the tecpatl (flint knife) and other thorns or spines that were used for religious bloodletting.
Stephanie Wood
by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
noch(tli), cactus fruit, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nochtli
tuna
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 2 recto, https://codicemendoza.inah.gob.mx/inicio.php?lang=english
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).
