citlalin tlamina. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

citlalin tlamina.

Principal English Translation:

the vapor of a comet (see Molina); or, a shooting star (see Sahagún)

Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 7 -- The Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the Binding of the Years, Number 14, Part 8, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1953), 13.

Alonso de Molina:

citlalin tlamina. exalacion de cometa.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 22v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English:

Mitoa: amo nenquiça, amo nēuetzi, in itlamjnaliz: tlaocuillotia. Auh in tlamintli, mitoa: citlalmjnqui, ocuillo = It was said that the passing of a shooting star rose and fell neither without purpose nor in vain. It brought a worm to something. And of [the animal] wounded by a shooting star, they said; "It hath been wounded by a shooting star; it hath received a worm." Such an animal could not be eaten; it was feared and shunned. People were also subject to this malady; they wrapped themselves in clothing our of fear of the shooting star.
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 7 -- The Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the Binding of the Years, Number 14, Part 8, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1953), 13.

For a visible association between a worm and stars, see the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglylphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, OR: Wired Humanities Project, 2020–present): https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/content/citlalocuilin-fcbk11f105v.

themes:

Celestial Phenomena