Song XLIV — The Cascabels Shake in Anahuac
Song XLIV carries the rubric "Ycuic Axayacatzin Ytzcoatl Mexico tlatohuani" — Song of Axayacatl Itzcoatl, tlatoani of Mexico. Axayacatl (r. 1469–1481) was the sixth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan, son of Tezozomoc and grandson of Itzcoatl (the fourth tlatoani, r. 1427–1440). Whether the rubric names two rulers or Axayacatl alone with Itzcoatl as a secondary name is uncertain; the colophon addresses this ambiguity. The song occupies folio 29v, sections 546–556, immediately following Song XLIII.
The song opens with the distinctive image of the oyohualli — cascabels, the ritual jingle bells worn by warriors and dancers — shaking as the Only God moves through Anahuac. This is a rarer opening than the usual flower-and-bird invocation: sound, not vision, inaugurates the sacred space. The cascabels are not decorative; they mark the divine presence as it walks through the land, their rhythm continuous with the drum-notation that precedes the song.
The song moves in five movements: (I) the divine opening — cascabels and Giver of Life walking through Anahuac (§§546–547); (II) the warrior middle — adornment in the hand, the war-flower pleasing God (§548); (III) the singer's self-lowering — Nonoalca, quail-bird, Mexican (§§549–550); (IV) colonial-syncretic movement — God, Jesus Christ, the dawn-home (§§551–552); (V) the Nahua closing — flowers scatter, the world in God's hand, flower-death at Tlapallan, tears woven in the sky, the journey to Quenonamican (§§553–556).
Notable features: the triple self-identification in §§549–550 (Nonoalca / quail-bird / Mexican) is unusual in the Cantares, where singers more commonly identify with noble birds (quetzal, quechol, tlauhquechol) rather than the humble quail (tototl/colin). Here the self-lowering is explicit: "I am only a Nonoalca, I am only the quail-bird from my own mouth-place." The diminutive identity is placed against the grandeur of Axayacatl's war-flower adornment in §548. The colonial-syncretic §§551–552 are among the most explicitly Christian sections in the late-folio Cantares — the birth of Jesus Christ, God's shimmering dawn-home — before the song pulls back into the pure Nahua flower-death register for its close.
Key vocabulary: oyohualli (cascabels — the jingle bells attached to warrior and dancer costumes; from oyohualtia = to make ring; their sound marks sacred time and the presence of the divine), yancuicatl (new song — yancuic = new; cuicatl = song; the newness may be ritual rather than compositional, marking each performance as a fresh creation before God), Nonoalco (a district of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco; associated with the ancient Nonoalca people who migrated south from the north; the name means "place of the mute" or "place of those who do not speak [our language]"), Ahuilizapan (Orizaba in Veracruz — literally "place of joyful water"; an important Aztec garrison town on the eastern trade route), Atlixco (a city in the modern state of Puebla — literally "on the water-face"; the site of battles between Huexotzinco and Tlaxcalteca forces and the Triple Alliance), Tlacochtenanpan (Arrow-Wall Place — tlacochli = arrow/dart; tenamitl = wall; a defensive place-name suggesting a fortress or garrison), tlahuaçomalin (war-torch adornment — possibly tlahuia [to light/illuminate] + çomalin [torch bundle/broom]; a ritual-martial item held in the warrior's hand that "gladdens God"), tlatlachinolli-xochitl (war-flower — tlachinolli = the scorched field of war, often paired with atl-tlachinolli [water-and-burning] as the kenning for war itself; combined with xochitl [flower] to create the characteristic Cantares paradox: war as flowering, death as bloom), colintototl (quail-bird — colin = Montezuma quail or a related species, Cyrtonyx montezumae; a small ground-dwelling bird; its choice here for self-identification signals deliberate humility against the war-flower context), nocamapan (from my mouth-place — no- = my, cama = mouth, -pan = at/in/from; an unusual kenning for the singer's voice, literally "from my mouth's own place"), tlahuizcalli (house of dawn — tlahuiztli = dawn light; calli = house; the place where God dwells in the first light; here God's home shimmers and gleams as jade blooms), xochimiquiztli (flower-death — the warrior's beautiful death in battle or on the sacrificial stone; not mourned but celebrated as the highest form of departure), Tlapallan (the Painted Land — the mythic eastern destination of Quetzalcoatl's departure from Tollan; the land of color and dawn beyond the sea; the place where warrior-souls go), cuicachoquiztli (song-weeping — cuicatl = song; choquiztli = tears/weeping; the compound describes the peculiar state of the Cantares singer, in which joy and grief are inseparable: the song weeps, the weeping sings), Quenonamican (the Ever-Place — "where one always is"; the afterlife destination for souls; unlike Mictlan [the underworld] or Tonatiuh Ichan [the sun's house for warriors], Quenonamican is a gentle and permanent place of being).
Song XLIV spans folio 29v, sections 546–556. The drum notation precedes §546 at the top of the folio. Song XLV begins at folio 30r, §557, with the rubric "Ycuic Tlaltecatzin Quauhchinanco" (Song of Tlaltecatzin of Cuauhchinanco). Nahuatl source text accessed from the UNAM TEMOA digital platform (temoa.iib.unam.mx), Cantares Mexicanos manuscript. The Cantares Mexicanos is held at the Biblioteca Nacional de México. Digital facsimile and transcription by UNAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas. Translated directly from Classical Nahuatl by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
[Drum preamble]
Toco toco tiqui tiqui — going away —
tocotico tocoti.
Coto tocoti tocoti —
cototi coto tocoti.
[§§546–547 — Movement I: The Only God Walks in Anahuac]
The cascabels shake —
there the Only God, the Giver of Life,
walks through Anahuac.
My heart goes forth.
The new song —
there the Giver of Life is known,
at Nonoalco, at Ahuilizapan.
There is the lord Nezahualpilli —
and there too he dwells,
at the Arrow-Wall, at Atlixco.
[§548 — Movement II: The Warrior's Hand]
Only in your hand was it filled —
your war-torch adornment.
By it you gladden the Only God,
the lord.
[§§549–550 — Movement III: The Quail-Bird's Voice]
My heart feels its poverty —
I am only a Nonoalca,
I am only the quail-bird
from my own mouth-place —
the Mexican one.
Your war-flower showers quetzal-plumes,
O Giver of Life —
I am only the quail-bird
from my own mouth-place —
the Mexican one.
[§§551–552 — Movement IV: The Colonial-Syncretic Movement]
Let it begin — I sing.
Let there be singing —
already here it has arrived,
it has come to perfection with God.
May it come —
I have rejoiced with the noble children.
Your song has gone with God.
There we descended with God —
there, wholly,
there was born Jesus Christ.
There in the house of dawn
your home shimmers everywhere —
your flower, O God.
Jade blooms,
bracelets scatter —
there is rejoicing.
There your flower's many-frondled leaves
go forth, O God.
[§§553–556 — Movement V: The World in God's Hand, the Flower-Death Close]
Only flowers scatter —
only his word,
the Giver of Life's,
settles upon the people of Anahuac.
By it you arrange well
the water and the mountain.
Only in your hand
the whole world rests.
Now we look upon you,
O Giver of Life.
Here the flower-death descended —
it reaches the earth.
Here, at Tlapallan —
those who made it
dwell beside us.
The tears rise —
but there
they are woven together
inside the sky.
The song weeps —
by it they journey
to Quenonamican.
Colophon
Song XLIV of the Cantares Mexicanos, attributed in the manuscript rubric to Axayacatl Itzcoatl, tlatoani of Mexico, folio 29v, sections 546–556 (eleven sections). The Cantares Mexicanos is a colonial-era manuscript of 91 Nahuatl songs compiled in the mid-sixteenth century by indigenous and colonial scribes in central Mexico, preserved at the Biblioteca Nacional de México.
This translation was made directly from Classical Nahuatl. Alonso de Molina's Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana (1571) and Frances Karttunen's An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl were consulted for lexical verification after the English draft was complete. No existing English translation was consulted during translation. The Blood Rule is maintained.
On the attribution: The rubric "Ycuic Axayacatzin Ytzcoatl Mexico tlatohuani" presents an interpretive puzzle. It may name two rulers — Axayacatl (r. 1469–1481) and Itzcoatl (r. 1427–1440) — as joint dedicatees or co-authors, which would be unusual but not impossible in the Cantares' memorial tradition. More likely, "Ytzcoatl" here is a secondary name or honorific attached to Axayacatl — possibly "Axayacatl Itzcoatl" as a compound noble name, similar to the double-name patterns seen elsewhere in Nahua naming conventions. The translation treats the song as Axayacatl's. Note that Song XLV (folio 30r), attributed to Tlaltecatzin of Cuauhchinanco, invokes Axayacatl in first person (§563: "nAxayaca") and mourns Itzcoatl (§559: "I only remember Itzcoatl, my grief"), suggesting the two songs form a memorial pair around these rulers. Kshatriya to note this pairing for potential organizational decision.
On the structure: Song XLIV is exceptional among the late-folio Cantares for its five-movement architecture and its unusual colonial-syncretic section at the exact center of the song. The colonial-syncretic §§551–552 are not appended as a coda (as in Song XII, for example) but placed between the warrior identity sequence (§§549–550) and the closing Nahua flower-death meditation (§§553–556). This central placement may be liturgical — the Christian invocation bracketed by Nahua piety — or it may reflect the manuscript's editorial history of insertions.
On the cascabels opening: The oyohualli (cascabels) that open §546 are the ritual bells attached to the ankles and wrists of warriors and dancers. Their sound in Nahua ceremony marks the sacred state: the divine is present, the dancer has become the god. By opening with this sound-image rather than the usual flower-and-bird vision, §546 places the listener inside the ceremony as it begins. The cascabels shake; the Only God is already moving through Anahuac; the heart goes forth. The song itself is the cascabel-rattle announcing the divine.
On the quail-bird self-identification: The colintototl (quail-bird) of §§549–550 is a striking self-identification in a corpus otherwise full of quetzal, quechol, and çaquan birds. The quail is small, ground-dwelling, and associated with the earth rather than the sky or paradise. To call oneself a quail-bird is to claim the lowest, most terrestrial singing identity — deliberately humble against the war-flower and cascabel grandeur of the surrounding sections. The phrase "çan ca nocamapan" (only from my own mouth-place) deepens this: the singer's song comes not from the sky-dwelling birds of Xochitlalpan but from his own earth-bound mouth. Yet he is still "the Mexican one" — mexicatl as identity claim, not diminishment.
On tlahuaçomalin (§548): This compound is unusual and the exact referent uncertain. The most probable reading is a warrior torch-bundle (tlahuia = to illuminate; çomalin or çomalin = a bundle of torches or a broom-shaped ritual fire item). In the context of "only in your hand was it filled" followed by "by it you gladden the Only God," it describes a ritual fire-adornment held by the lord that has the power to please the deity. The translation "war-torch adornment" is a provisional rendering; Kshatriya may wish to flag for specialist consultation.
On §555 and Tlapallan: The phrase "nican in Tlapalla quichihuan tonahuac onoque" (here at Tlapallan those who made it dwell beside us) contains a profound spatial paradox. Tlapallan — the Painted Land to the east, Quetzalcoatl's destination, the mythic beyond — is here asserted to be "nican" (here, at this place). The warrior flower-death has collapsed the distance between the earth and the beyond: those who died the flower-death are not far away but "tonahuac onoque" — dwelling beside us. This is the Cantares' central consolation: death is not distance.
Boundary note: Song XLIV ends at §556. Song XLV begins at folio 30r, §557, with the rubric "Ycuic Tlaltecatzin Quauhchinanco" (Song of Tlaltecatzin of Cuauhchinanco). The scribal footnote reference markers dxlviii (appearing in §555) and dxlix (appearing in §556) are UNAM TEMOA editorial cross-references and do not form part of the Nahuatl text; they have been omitted from the source text below.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: Cantares Mexicanos — In Cuicatl
Classical Nahuatl source text from the UNAM TEMOA digital platform (temoa.iib.unam.mx), Cantares Mexicanos manuscript, folio 29v, sections 546–556. The Cantares Mexicanos is held at the Biblioteca Nacional de México (MS 1628 bis). Transcription by UNAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above. Scribal cross-reference numbers (dxlviii, dxlix) have been omitted as editorial apparatus.
[Drum preamble]: Toco toco tiqui tiqui ic ontlantiuh tocotico tocoti — Coto tocoti tocoti cototi coto tocoti
§546: Oyohualin colinia oon in Icelteotl Ipalnemoa Anahuac o onnemi a noyol ayio
§547: Yn yancuica oncan quixima Ipalnemoani ca ye Nonoalco Ahuilizapan i in teuctli yehua Neçahualpilli y yece ye oncan aya in Tlacochtenanpan Atlixco ayio
§548: Çan momac otitemic motlahua'çomal a ica ticahuiltia Ycelteotl in teuctli yehua etcetera
§549: Yyeho aye icnotlamati noyollo çan ninonoalcatl çan can nicolintototl o nocamapan aya mexicatl in cayio
§550: Onquetzalpipixauhtoc motlachinolxochiuh yn Ipalnemoa çan ca nicolitototl o nocamapan aya mexicatl in cayio
§551: Ma ya pehualo ya nicuihua in ma ya oncuico ye nicaan aya oya ye'coc yehuan Dios in cayio yn ma ycaya onahuilihuan tepilhuan a aya mocuic oya yehuan Dios oncan titemoc yehuan Dios a oncan huelin oncan tlacat y ye Jesuchristo in cayio
§552: Yn oncan tlahuizcalli milintimani mochan aya moxochiuh aya Dios aya chalchiuhcueponi maquiztzetzelihui on netlamachtilo ya in cayio yn oncan yao nepapan izhuayo moxochiuh aya Dios a etcetera
§553: Çan ye xochitl moyahua oo çan ca ytlatol yn Ipalnemoani oon tepan ye moteca Anahuac oo yca tichuelmana atlon yan tepetl ayio
§554: Çan te momac mani a cemanahuatl in niman ye tehuatl toconyaittoa ya Ypalnemoani
§555: Nican temoc y xochimiquiztli tlalpan aci yehua ye nican in Tlapalla quichihuan tonahuac onoque ohuaca canyyanca yio
§556: Choquiztl ehuatiuh ayahue yece ye oncan nepan netlaçalo ylhuicatl ytic i cuicachocoa ica huiloan Quenonamican ohuanca etcetera
Source Colophon
Nahuatl source text from the UNAM TEMOA digital facsimile (temoa.iib.unam.mx), Cantares Mexicanos manuscript, folio 29v. The manuscript is held at the Biblioteca Nacional de México (MS 1628 bis). Transcription by UNAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Reproduced for non-commercial archival use.
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