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letrachihualoni.

Headword: 
letrachihualoni.
Principal English Translation: 

a medium for writing (a dye or colorant) (see the Digital Florentine Codex, Book 11, folio 218 verso)
https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/11/folio/218v

Attestations from sources in English: 

tlacuiloloni, letrachihualoni = It is a medium for painting, a medium for writing. (Anderson and Dibble translation to English)
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 218v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/218v . Accessed 2 January 2026.

This term includes a loanword from Spanish (letra, letters), and it represents the growing distinction between painting and writing. See the attestation above. The drawing that accompanies this text in the Florentine Codex shows people involved in the preparation of the colorant and a man off in the corner writing in a bound book. (SW)

themes: 
Art, Crafts
Colors
Writing, Literacy
See also: 
letra.
chīhua.
-loni.