juez (Osu38r)

This painted example of iconography features a Nahua man from Xochimilco, don Esteban de Guzmán, who is labeled as a juez (judge or investigator, the full title being juez de residencia). In this scene, he is meeting with the viceroy, don Luis de Velasco. He is included here for the purpose of comparing the details that might overlap with hieroglyphs in this collection. Don Esteban is seated on a woven chair that we would call an icpalli. He wears fine white cotton clothing with red trim, including both the traditional cloak (what we would call a tilmatli) and what may be a Spanish-style tunic with a high neck underneath. He carries a long, probably wooden staff (which would have been called a topilli) in his right hand. Importantly, a speech scroll emerges from his mouth. He was a tlatoani (or tlahtoani with the added glottal stop), a ruler, who had the authority of speech. Don Esteban is shown in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. The profile view was vastly preferred over a frontal view, but in the contextualizing image we can see that he was meeting with and speaking to the viceroy, and they face each other in a very balanced arrangement.