teotetl (FCbk11f209v)

This compound hieroglyph features a jet stone (teotetl). The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. This compound has two elements. One is a standing human-bird figure on the left representing teotl (a sacred force). It is shown in profile, facing right. It wears a man’s loincloth. Unlike a bird, it has four claws, but its head has a large beak. The “front claws” are very sharp, and these arms or legs are bent at what could be the elbows. The way the tlacuilo draws this teotl seems to suggest an Indigenous Christian way of thinking about the ancestral concept, making teotl into something like a tlacatecolotl (human-owl/devil). The colonial clergy seem to have achieved a dramatic shift, taking teotl from something divine to something demonic. The other element in this compound is a stone with the classic curling ends and wavy diagonal lines across the middle. But this stone has more than the usual design; it has dots and U-shapes running alongside the stripes. These details are reminiscent of some hieroglyphs for tlalli.