Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
a stick, a staff, a rod, a stalk, a switch (see Karttunen and Molina); osier twigs or maguey spines (see Sahagún attestations); relates to blood-letting self-sacrifice
See an image that represents tlacotl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
tlacotl = osier twig (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
tlacotl. Auh aço monacazco in titlaqujxitz, anoço monenpilco. = maguey spines. And thou shalt pass these straws either through thy ears or through thy tongue. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
motzintlan in ticqujxtiz, in tictlaçaz: aço çan cecen in ticqujxtiz, anoço çan ticcenqujxtiz, tictlatlaçalhuiz, yn aço centzontli, aço vntzontli, in ticqujxtiz tlacotl: = “When thou drawest it through, thou shalt cast it down behind thee, either each one {alone} as thou takest it out, or else thou shalt gather them, binding them together, even four hundred {of them}, even eight hundred of the straws, which thou shalt have passed through thy tongue. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)