aoztotl.

aoztotl = "manantial de agua, profundo, como cueva" = "deep source of water, like a cave" (Anderson and Dibble translation) (central Mexico, sixteenth century, no later than the 1570s)
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 245v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/245v . Accessed 4 February 2026.

In the Yucatan, caverns with water are called tsʼonoʼot (also spelled dzonot, which entered Spanish as cenote) in Yucatec Maya. The drawing of an aoztotl in the Florentine Codex shows the water swirling, as though coming from a natural spring, and of course, the landscapes between the central altiplano and the Yucatan are considerably different. In the Yucatan, the water of the cenotes can involve lengthy underground rivers. (SW)