tzinitzcan.

"...those [feathers] which appear on their heads [of all the different kinds of birds and the turkeys], even the not precious [feathers] are called tzinitzcan. Those which appear on the head of the resplendent trogon are called quetzaltzinitzcan. And those which appear on the neck are called tapalcayotl.... Those which appear on its belly and its back are called alapachtli...." (Anderson & Dibble translation)
Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 58r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/58r?spTexts=&nhTexts= Accessed 24 October 2025.

TZINITZCAN TŌTŌ-TL/TEŌ-TZINITZCAN, Mountain Trogon, Trogon mexicanus) [FC: 20 Tzinitzcan tototl: teutzinitzcã]: “It lives in the water. Its feathers are black, dark. And for this reason is it called teotzinitzcan {tzinitzcan names feathers considered especially precious, that resemble the glistening green crest feathers and/or the chili-red feathers of the breast of the Resplendent Quetzal}: on its breast and its underwing it is varicolored, half black, half green. It is glistening green, resplendent.” Martin del Campo identified this as one of several Central Mexican red-bellied trogons, of which the “Mexican Trogon” (now known as the Mountain Trogon) is perhaps the trogon best known to the Aztecs. However, the Elegant Trogon (T. elegans) and the Collared Trogon (T. collaris) might be included. The reference to “living in the water” makes no sense in any case and may be an error.
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 11 – Earthly Things, no. 14, Part XII, 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, 1963); Rafael Martín del Campo, “Ensayo de interpretación del Libro Undecimo de la Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún – 11 Las Aves (1),” Anales del Instituto de Biología Tomo XI, Núm. 1 (México, D.F., 1940); and, with quotation selections, synthesis, and analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.

the mountain trogon, a type of bird with green feathers (late sixteenth century, Tetzcoco?)
Ballads of the Lords of New Spain: The Codex Romances de los Señores de la Nueva España, transcribed and translated by John Bierhorst (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 35.

tzinitzcan (noun) = a bird, Trogon Mexicannus
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1877), 167.