Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture, birds (see Hunn, attestations)
TZOPĪLŌ-TL, Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) and Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) [FC: 42 Tzopilotl] “It is black, dirty black, chili-red-headed, chalky-legged. All its food is what has died – stinking, filthy.” This describes the Turkey Vulture, though Martin del Campo gives priority to the Black Vulture. The name apparently applied equally to both species. Clearly, the Aztecs shared our modern sensibilities with respect to these carrion feeders.
Taken into Spanish as zopilote.
tzopilotl = buzzard, vulture
auh y tototzitzintin yn cacalome yn tzotzo pilo[me] [f. 30v] niman muchin tlalpan huetzque ça papatlacatinemia huel otlaocoltzatzatzique = and the little birds, the crows, the buzzards, all fell on the ground and went about fluttering and making very mournful cries
Tepal nitzopiloti. = With someone's help I became a vulture.
Inic ompa mochihuaz in tzopilome, in cocoyo (...) Inic itzcuintli intlacual momochihuaz. Yehica ayac oquitochtli, oquimazatili; ca zan inehuian oquimochihuili, oquimopicti in acualli, in ayectli, in tlahuelilocayotl = En esta forma se hará comida de los zopilotes, de los coyotes (...) De este modo se hará comida de perro. Porque nadie lo hizo conejo, lo hizo venado; que sólo él mismo se hizo, se formó malo, torcido, maldoso (centro de México, s. XVI)
Inic vmpa intlaqual muchihuaz in tzopilome, in cocoyo = Allá se convertirá en comida de los zopilotes, de los coyotes