quilchiuhqui (FCbk10f29r)

This iconographic example, featuring a vegetable gardener (quilchiuhqui, also called a tlatocani and a tlalchiuhqui), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the text on the previous page of the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se, and for various terms included here, we credit the DFC keywording team and we draw from the text. This example shows a man in profile, facing left, sitting on a small woven seat (icpalli), and wearing a loincloth (maxtlatl) and a cloak (tilmatli). A large book (amoxtli) appears open in front of him. He is pointing (mapilhuia) either at the book or at the moon (metztli) beyond the book. The point in the text is that the horticulturalist is knowledgeable about books (amoxmatini), and therefore he is one who knows how to count the days (tonalpohuani), months (metztlapohuani), and years (xippohuani). The benefit to his work appears in the form of a healthy plant behind the man. It has three large green leaves and four yellow roots. This is probably a quilitl, an edible herb, which also contributes to the term for horticulturalist, almost like a phonetic indicator for his identity.