COLLECTION NAME:
JCB Archive of Early American Images
Record
Accession number:
30289
Record number:
30289-136
JCB call number:
Codex Ind 2
Image title:
quahuitlehua. v. nemotemi
Place image published:
[Mexico]
Image date:
[ca. 1585]
Image function:
illustration; recto leaf 157
Technique:
painting, manuscript
Image dimension height:
9.8 cm.
Image dimension width:
8.3 cm.
Page dimension height:
21 cm.
Page dimension width:
15.2 cm.
Materials medium:
ink, watercolor
Materials support:
paper
Languages:
Nahuatl
Description:
A bald man with protruding tongue is shown holding an incense bag and wearing sandals. He wears a flayed human skin and mask. On his shoulders are knotted red epaulettes and he wears a necklace of blue beads with golden pendants. The text describes the man pictured here as the god, Huitzilopochtlli.
Source creator:
Tovar, Juan de, ca. 1546-ca. 1626
Source Title:
Historia de la benida de los yndios apoblar a Mexico de las partes remotas de Occidente los sucessos y perigrinaçiones del camino su gouierno, ydolos y templos dellos, ritos y cirimonias ... calandarios delos tiempos
Source place of publication:
Mexico
Source date:
ca. 1585
notes:
These leftover five days in the Aztec calendar were called the nemontemi or five unlucky or useless days. It was considered a dangerous time when people kept to their houses and didn't even cook to avoid attracting the attention of unfavorable spirits. The man pictured here is probably an impersonator of the god, Huitzilopochtlli. The epaulettes were the tobacco pouches (iyequachtli) worn from the shoulders of the temple priest. The Tovar manuscript is divided into three sections. This third section of the manuscript contains the Tovar calendar which records a continuous Mexican calendar with months, weeks, days, dominical letters, and church festivals of a Christian 365-day year.
Time Period:
1492-1600
References:
Kubler, G. & Gibson, C. The Tovar Calendar, Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, vol. XI, p. 35-36
Provenance/Donor:
Acquired from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1946.
Owner and copyright:
©John Carter Brown Library, Box 1894, Brown University, Providence, R.I. 02912
geographic area:
Spanish America
Subject Area:
Indigenous peoples
Subject headings:
Mexico--History--To 1519
Subject headings:
Indians of Mexico
Subject headings:
Aztec calendar
Subject headings:
Aztec gods
quahuitlehua. v. nemotemi
