colotl (FCbk6f21v)
This iconographic example of a scorpion (referred to in the keywords of the Digital Florentine Codex team as a colotl, but not glossed) shows a bird’s eye view of the arachnid, with its curled tail and four visible legs. It is on a woven mat (apparently a petlatl).
Stephanie Wood
In our Online Nahuatl Dictionary, we note how Chimalpahin reported that a nahualli might gather scorpions among other animals for use in his practices. Also, we quote the Primeros Memoriales, which mentions how there was a loincloth with a scorpion design. Finally, the Florentine Codex elsewhere refers to Scorpion Stars. For making potential comparisons with glyphs (below), see the colotl that is a personal name in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, what may be stingers from scorpions, and a star scorpion.
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
escorpiones, nahuales, nahual
colo(tl), a scorpion, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/colotl
el escorpión
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy", fol. 21v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/6/folio/21v Accessed 2 July 2025.
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