Aban Flores Morán

Each culture categorizes the stimuli that the human senses perceive in a particular way. These different delimitations are evident in colour since cultures around the world define, name, and symbolize in a particular way the nuances of the colour spectrum. This article will define the Nahua colours conceptualized in the 16th century. To do this, we will analyse some specific references in Book xi of the Florentine Codex. There we can find a description of the natural world written in Nahuatl and Spanish. These definitions allow us to comprehend how the Nahua named each colour and the variations of shade. The methodology includes finding all the references to an animal or plant existing in the real world and its relation with specific words describing their colours. By looking to these animals or plants, we can measure the rgb values of their colour and then complete the colour range related to each Nahuatl word. For example, if a description mentioned that the feathers of a bird are chichiltic, when we see a specimen of this animal, we can identify the colour to which this term refers.
This analysis shows that the Nahuas occupied the following colour categories: texotli (green, blue and gray), chichiltic (brown, pink, orange and red), coztic (yellow, orange and light brown), tliltic (dark and black shades) and iztac (white and light tones), which constitute the entire range of the color spectrum. Some terms alluded to a specific variety of shades, the most relevant cases being nextic (brown and gray shades) and xoxoctic (green shades). Furthermore, this analysis shows that terms such as tlaztalehualli (incarnate), xochipalli (orange), camopaltic (purple) and quauhpachtli (brown), are of little use since these nuances are included within one of the five basic terms. These delimitations allow to consider further research to relate colour terms to a specific context, and so, understand the symbolism of different colours.