30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreThe ‘Rise Talokan!’ hand gesture
Rise Talokan hand sign and Mixtec gesture, Codex Zouche-Nuttall
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Eloy Garza: With the release of the movie Wakanda Forever, there’s been a focus on the influence of real mesoamerican cultures on the movie. There’s a gesture the Atlanteans (known as talocans) use where a person spreads both of their hands in a open position. I’ve seen people say the writers got it from codices such as the codice nuttall and it’s supposed to mean power and others say it’s in reference to the sun. Is there any actual meaning to this gesture in codices? (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
This seems to us to be another case of media fake news. As far as we know, there’s no indication whatsoever that this gesture had any historical connection in the codices with ‘power’ or the sun. Whilst these gestures ARE certainly common in - particularly Mixtec - codices, ‘most gestures have not been interpreted’ (Hill Boone: 2000:59). Manuel Hermann Lejarazu, a Mixtec codex scholar, talks in general terms of the open two-handed sign being a ‘ceremonial greeting’ (2008: 14). The only seriously detailed study of this subject that we’re aware of is that by Nancy Troike (1982), and even then she limited herself to hand gestures in just one Mixtec codex (the Colombino-Becker). She concluded that the depiction of two individuals making hand gestures in front of each other predominantly signified ‘one person giving a request gesture and the other making an acceptance gesture’ (1982: 190). See an example of this by following the link below...
References:-
• Hermann Lejarazu, Manuel (2008): ‘Códice Nuttall: Lado 2’, Arqueología Mexicana, Edición Especial, no. 29, México DF
• Hill Boone, Elizabeth (2000): Stories in Red and Black, University of Texas Press
• Troike, Nancy P. (1982) ‘Postures and Gestures in the Mixtec Codices’ in The Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central Mexico, A Conference at Dumbarton Oaks (1977), Eds. Elizabeth Benson and Elizabeth Hill Boone, Trustees for Harvard University.
Picture source:-
• Image scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Graz, Austria, 1987.
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Rise Talokan hand sign and Mixtec gesture, Codex Zouche-Nuttall
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