COYOL-TŌTŌ-TL, literally, “jingle bell bird,” Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius gubernator) and Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus). [FC: 50 Coioltototl] “It is the same as the acatzanatl , though some have a chili-red throat, breast, wings, rump. Some are yellow-breasted, very yellow breasted, with white wing-bends. And good, very clear, is its song – much like a bell, pleasing, sweet. Hence it is named coyoltototl. In the reeds, in the midst of reeds it sits, it hatches.” Martin del Campo identified this as the Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius gubernator). The would seem to apply to the Red-winged Blackbird, though they do not show red on the “throat, breast … rump,” but only on the wings. The name encompasses the Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) as well, which has a yellow breast and prominent white wing patches. Whether these are “the same as” the acatzanatl, literally, “reed grackle,” is uncertain, as that term might apply rather to the Slender-billed Grackle, which is much like the two blackbird species named here in its habits and habitat.
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 11 – Earthly Things, no. 14, Part XII, 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, 1963); Rafael Martín del Campo, “Ensayo de interpretación del Libro Undecimo de la Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún – 11 Las Aves (1),” Anales del Instituto de Biología Tomo XI, Núm. 1 (México, D.F., 1940); and, with quotation selections, synthesis, and analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.