warrior

This is a male indigenous warrior, with a shield in his right hand and a spear in his left. This shield has a classic Mesoamerican pattern, or part of a pattern, such as we can see on a sixteenth-century shield in the Mexican National Museum of History, or a shield painted in the Florentine Codex, and another painted in the Codex Mendoza. The one here has only one inverted moon; the norm may have been to have an additional three inverted moons in the bottom half of the shield. The warrior also wears a loincloth (the ends hang down below his tunic). The tunic has a weave that is reminiscent of some of the glyphic representations of tribute cloth used on some of the various parts of this codex. The warrior also wears sandals, such as those mentioned in the tribute requirements for the soldiers. [SW] [Note: For more information about the shield, please go to http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/07/2014/an-aztec-shield-gifted-to-a-conquistador and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Mendoza#/media/File:Codex_Mendoza_folio_20r.jpg. For a discussion about the spear, see https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/ask-us/did-the-aztecs-use-metal-spears.]