Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
foam, vapor, smoke, scum; this is part of the name for tin (amochitl) and it appears in the Florentine Codex, Book 11, f. 215r., but translations vary.
See also the suggestion of a type of tree in the attestations.
See an image that represents mochitl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
There is also a tree called the cuamochitl, cuauhmochitl, or guamochil, and it has edible seed pods. The origin of the term, which might help explain the "-mochitl" part remains elusive.
Antonio Peñafiel suggests "huey mochitl" as the source, and supports the idea that the mochitl is a tree.