oyoualli

[Peter Keeler]

Greetings, fellow Mesoamericanists - 

    Here is a question from a lurking Mayanist: 

         what can you tell me about the word oyoualli?

     I was surprised not to find it in the usual dictionaries,  nor, to my eye, any related word, or other spelling.

    Oyoualli is the term often used by archaeologists and art historians of pre-Columbian central Mexican cultures for a  cut-shell pectoral pendant. The pendant is a cross-section cut from the giant Mexican limpet, patella mexicana, oval in shape, with a hole in the middle.  Allegedly, for the Mexica it had connotations of female genitalia.

  thanks in advance for your comments, 

            Peter Keeler
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