huipilli (FCbk8f30v)

This iconographic example, featuring a Nahua woman’s hand woven and embroidered blouse or tunic (huipilli) is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making potential comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the parallel text on the manuscript. This example shows the usual V-neck at the top/middle of the garment. It also has a square piece of fabric at the base of the V-neck. This patch (called a pechero in Spanish, according to collaborator Ofelia Morales, personal communication) may be for reinforcement, but it also serves as a canvas for culturally meaningful designs. This one has a frontal view of a beautiful four-petaled flower with a circle in the middle, which creates a quincunx and may be a tonalli sign. Each petal also has something that looks like a stamen or a pistil. A vertical row of stripes runs down the middle of the blouse in a pattern of black-white-red-white that repeats. Some edits were made by the artist who painted this garment on the manuscript, involving something like the modern “white-out“ correction fluid. Also, red was painted over one of the black stripes in order to keep the pattern of stripes intact. On both sides of the middle section that is striped, the tunic is white. But the bottom of the tunic has horizontal red stripes with a black-and-white pattern involving horizontal diamond shapes.