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Iguana

17th Feb 2025

Iguana

The iguana, Florentine Codex Book XI

Iguanas and lizards have a similar appearance and share some behaviour traits such as stretching out on tree branches. Little wonder that the Mexica called the iguana cuauhcuetzpalin or ‘tree-lizard’ in Nahuatl. Symbolically the lizard enjoyed the limelight, being chosen as number four in the sequence of all-important calendrical day signs. Yet the iguana plays its own unique part in traditional Mesoamerican folklore... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

Lizard was a favourable sign, and people born on the day 1-Lizard would be agile and vigorous with a robust body. These attributes could easily be associated too with the iguana. Describing it as a ‘robust breather’ - for its ability to stay alive, open-mouthed, without eating for days on end - the Florentine Codex confirms the reptile was eaten by the Aztecs, and archaeological evidence shows that iguanas, both green and black varieties, were cooked and eaten by the ancient Maya (Coe 1994: 155). But did the creature represent more than simply, in Coe’s words, a convenient way to have a supply of fresh meat on hand, since it could be captured and kept for long periods of time without feeding? Most certainly...

On earth, both iguana and lizard held associations with human reproductive vitality and fertility, but these could be extended to the divine, with likely connections to the moon, to rain god Tlaloc, to vegetation... (Seler, 2008: 257-264). Lizard features often in the codices of Central Mexico, whilst lizard and iguana feature several times in Maya codices in the context of sacred offerings, sometimes depicted lying prostrate on a grain of maize above a pot or jug (ibid: 264) (pic 2).
In his in-depth study of traditional Mexican folk mask culture, Donald Cordry found masks featuring the iguana in harvest celebrations, alongside masks of frogs and toads linked to rain-petitioning and crop-fertility (1980: 203-204) (pic 3).
In Mesoamerican mythology, Iguana plays an (innocent) role in at least one story of how humankind lost its immortality...

A divine being sends the message of immortality to humankind, but the messengers, either through malice or stupidity, change the content and give a message that in the future will make humans mortal... [The myth] appears in Mexico among the Zoque-Popoluca, as one more episode of the Spirit of Maize myth. The hero disinterred and revived his father. He sent the iguana to warn his mother not to look straight at her resurrected husband, and not to laugh or cry. The iguana passed the message on to the lizard, but the lizard changed it. When the husband came home to his wife, she looked straight at him and laughed and cried. Her husband turned into dust, and human immortality disappeared with him (López Austin, 1990: 214).

Sources/references:-
• Coe, Sophie D. (1994) America’s First Cuisines, University of Texas Press, Austin
• Cordry, Donald (1980) Mexican Masks, University of Texas Press, Austin
• López Austin, Alfredo (1990) The Myths of the Opossum - Pathways of Mesoamerican Mythology, trans. Bernard and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque
• Malbrath, Susan (2023) ‘Animal Symbolism in Calendar Almanacs of the Codex Borgia and Links to Postclassic Imagery in Mexico’, chap. 11 in Milbrath, Susan & Baquedano, Elizabeth (Eds.) Birds and Beasts of Ancient Mesoamerica, University Press of Colorado, Denver
• Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de (1963) Florentine Codex Book 11 - Earthly Things, trans. Charles E. Dibble & Arthur J.O. Anderson, School of American Research and University of Utah, Santa Fe
• Seler, Eduard (2008) Las Imágenes de Animales en los Manuscritos Mexicanos y Mayas, Casa Juan Pablos, Mexico City.

Picture sources:-
• Main: image from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 1: illustration by and © Felipe Dávalos/Mexicolore
• Pic 2: images scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Madrid Codex (Codex Tro-Cortesianus), Graz, Austria, 1967
• Pic 3: photo scanned from Cordry (1980), op cit
• Pic 4: photo downloaded from an internet auction site (easyliveauction.com).

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Iguana

The iguana, Florentine Codex Book XI

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