iyetl (FCbk9f28r)

This iconographic example, featuring a tobacco tube (iyetl), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows a seated gentleman on an icpalli (throne-like seat) and wearing a cloak tied over his shoulder. The cloak has folds that are marked in purple to give it a three-dimensionality, showing European artistic influence. This is a special view of the tobacco tube or pipe (acayetl), in that it is lit like a cigar, and it is held horizontally between the fingers, something like a cigarette. It is near enough to his mouth that perhaps he was about to puff on it. The tube does have a hole at the end nearest to him. The contextualizing image for this record shows another lit tobacco tube being handed to another ruler, but that scene offers fewer clues about the tubes. The Mexican Treasury (200,114) does state that tobacco rolls were smoked through the nose or mouth. John Bierhorst (A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance, 1985, 180) mentions sahumerio (incense) and perfumadero (a perfuming device) as translations he had located, suggesting multiple uses for tobacco. The man here also holds a flower device in his left hand, bringing it up toward his nose. Another flower device lies on the tiled floor near his right foot. Elsewhere in the Florentine Codex, tobacco and flowers are said to be the exclusive purview of rulers. See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary entries for iyetl. The Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions (1984, 251) notes a religious significance for tobacco. And on folio 29 verso of the DFC, a tobacco tube is one of the offerings being presented before the divine force Huitzilopochtli.