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tlalconetl.
Headword:
tlalconetl.
Principal English Translation:
a name ("Tlalconetl," literally, "Child of the Earth"); also seen as a slug or a lizard
Attestations from sources in English:
See an image that represents tlalconetl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
Combines: tlalli = land, Earth; and, conetl = child. (SW)
The Travaux et memoires de l'Institut d'ethnologie, Vol. 62 (1958), p. 218, translates tlalconetl as a type of lizard. Tlalconete or tlaconete became the loan from Nahuatl into Spanish and was used to refer to a slimy, repugnant creature that thrives in humid places. The Mejicanismos book by Santamaría notes that folklore held that the creature could get into the vagina of a virgin and only intercourse could get it out. [See: José G. Moreno de Alba, La lengua española en México (2015).]
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