tecuani (FCbk5f1r)

This iconographic example of a wild animal (tecuani), likely a jaguar (being golden with black spots), is included here for the purpose of making potential comparisons with hieroglyphs that involve a tecuani. The body of the animal is shown in profile, facing left, but its head is turned around looking backwards toward a man wearing a loincloth, carrying a load in a woven basket, and using a tumpline (mecapalli) to distribute some of the weight to his forehead. He is in the midst of walking (movement), with one foot raised, and his hands are up by his head holding onto the tumpline. He may be on a long-distance marketing journey, and he has come across this wild animal. According to the Digital Florentine Codex team, this man is a tlamama (or tlamamah with the glottal stop). In Mexican Spanish, the term is tameme. His loincloth has red fringe at the bottom. Interestingly, the jaguar is turning back toward the tlamama and making a crying sound (the text employs the word choca, to cry, but the team has added tzatzi/tzatzih as a keyword for this kind of sound). A speech scroll has emerged from the animal’s mouth. The scroll or volute has shading that gives it a three-dimensional look. It also has two added bits that may indicate this is not human speech. One is a round bit with a black dot in the middle; it is placed outside the curl of the volute. The other is a pointed barb; it is attached to the start of the scroll and placed underneath it.