tapachtli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

tapachtli.

Principal English Translation:

a seashell, perhaps a scallop shell, or possibly coral (see Karttunen); Vogde's scallop (Florentine Codex, Book 11, f. 64v)

Orthographic Variants:

tapachtli

IPAspelling:

tɑpɑtʃtɬi

Alonso de Molina:

tapachtli. coral, concha o venera.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 90v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

TAPACH-TLI sea shell, coral / coral, concha, o venera (M), concha (del mar) (Z) [(2)Zp.32,212]
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 214.

Attestations from sources in English:

Tapach nocallin = My house is of coral
John F. Schwaller, "The Pre-Hispanic Poetics of Sahagún's Psalmodia christiana," in Psalms in the Early Modern World, eds. Linda Phyllis Austern, Kari Boyd McBride, and David L. Orvis (London: Ashgate, 2011), 326.

tapachtli = Vogde's scallop, lion's paw scallop; in case it is helpful, here's an image of the Pacific lion's paw: https://www.mexican-shells.org/pacific-lions-paw-shell/
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 9: The Merchants", fol. 18r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/9/folio/18r/images/0 Accessed 28 August 2025.

tapachtli = "yoan itoca atzcalli, in jxqujch atlan nemj tapachnacatl" = "Also its name is atzcalli. It is the flesh [and shell] of all which dwell in the water."
Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 64v, Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Transcribed and translated with notes by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. 2nd rev. ed. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research / University of Utah Press, 1950–82. Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/64v Accessed 25 October 2025.

"The 800 vermillion seashells also appear in the Matrítula an are glossed tapachtli. Tapachtli is a kind of seashell that 'resembles a crystal; it is also translucent; it is also transparent, smooth, slick, ever slick, rough; it is rough, perforated' (Sahagún 1950–1982 11:230). They were cut and made into bracelets and necklaces (ibid.), and the atzcalli (a synonym for tapachtli) was called a 'physician's bowl' and used by physicians for divination (ibid.,: 60). The Información of 1554 (Scholes and Adams 1957:114) calls these 'piedras encarnadas de que ellos hacían máscaras.' Clark (1938 1:74) identifies these as Spondylus princeps and suggests that they were probably provided by the towns of Çihuatlan, Çacatulan, Nochcoc, and Coyucac (ibid.)."
Essential Codex Mendoza, ed. Frances Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt (1997, 84).

tapachtli = reddish in color; see the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs for two visuals
https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/content/tamapachco-mdz12r and
https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/content/tamapachtli-fcbk9f18r

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

tapachtli = almeja voladora, almeja mano de león
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 9: The Merchants", fol. 18r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/9/folio/18r/images/0 Accessed 28 August 2025.

Coming from far away at the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, seashells were prized in the central highlands. Mexicolore has drawings of the tapachtli. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a tabard and necklace apparently made of tapachtli.

themes:

Colors

Marine, Maritime, Lacustrine

Shells