See an image that represents tzotzona in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
Qujcujcatiaia, yn iveveiooan, qujteponacilhujaia, caiotzotzonjlia, caioujtequjlia, caiacachilhuja, comjchicaoacilhuja. = Her old men sang for her; they beat the two-toned wooden drum, and the turtle-shell drum; they rattled rattles shaped like dried poppy-seed pods, and they rattled bone rattles. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 1 -- The Gods; No. 14, Part 2, 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, 1950), 5.
tzotzona (verb) = to strike the drum
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1877), 167.
auh no yquac cuicuicaya. tlatlatzonaya. yn omotocateneuh huehue çaca yn ichan auh ynacaztitlan acic quicac yn moteuhcçomatzin ylhuicamina. quihto. tetlatlani. aquin cuica. auh nimā quilhuique ca yehuatl yn motechiuhcauh huehue çaca. = But also at that time the aforenamed Huehue Çaca continuously sang and beat drums in his home, and [the sound] reached Moteucçomatzin Ilhuicamina's ears; he heard it. He asked people: Who sings? And they said to him: It is your senior official, Huehue Çaca. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 2, 94–95.
motzohtzonaz, in omeyollohuaz = he will doubt about himself Susanne Klaus, Uprooted Christianity: The Preaching of the Christian Doctrine in Mexico, Based on Franciscan Sermons of the 16th Century Written in Nahuatl (Bonn: Bonner Amerikanistische Studien e. V. c/o Seminar für Völkerkunde, Universität Bonn, 1999), 249.
In references to the cueitl (skirt) and huipilli (blouse), this verb can be metaphorical for committing adultery.
Huehuehtlahtolli. Testimonios de la antigua palabra, ed. Librado Silva Galeana y un estudio introductorio por Miguel León-Portilla (México: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 81, note 64.
niman ye yc quauhtzotzona yn oztotenpa ynic oncan quinelhuayotique yn yehuatl altepetl. yn ical yn iteocal yn huitzilopochtli = Thereupon they hammered in wood [piles] at the cave's mouth. Thus they made a foundation for the city and Huitzilopochtli's house, his temple. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 108–109.
tlatzotzontivitze, yoan tlapitztivitze yoan quavilacapitzli = They came beating drums and blowing [trumpets] and wooden fifes. (Mexico City, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 186.
ie ic quivicatiuitze, quitzotzona inic quinextilia in intelaçotlaliz = they came along with him, stroking his hair to show their good feeling (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 118.
yuã tepuztica tetezotzõaloc ynacayotzĩ = and his body was struck repeatedly with metal (mid sixteenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 126.