chiyan (Mdz16r)

The half-circle of chia here is not a requirement of the standard chiyan glyph; it appears that the artist was trying to echo the half-circle of the teotl above it, or to mirror it, perhaps to complete the circle. Chiyan (salvia hispanica) or chia—as we know it in Spanish and English today—is a high-energy food source and a flavoring for beverages, and its oil has various purposes. For example, the Aztecs mixed chia oil with face paints, according to Cecilia Russell, https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/ask-experts/did-the-aztecs-use-make-up. Because the oil was so important, the word chian can also translate as oily or as an oily seed (semilla oleaginosa, as found in Rémi Siméon). As the link to our dictionary entry for chian shows (drawing from the Florentine Codex), there were many regional variations on the chia oils.