xochihua

Classical Nahuatl

Etymology

From xochi(tl) (“flower”).

Noun

xochihua

1. (literally) flower-bearer
2. seducer, seductress
3. The term applied to a cross-dressing figure depicted, and described as having androgynous qualities, in the Florentine Codex.

References

• Neil L. Whitehead, editor (2007), “Sexual Encounters/Sexual Collisions: Alternative Sexualities in Colonial Mesoamerica”, in Ethnohistory (in Classical Nahuatl), volume 54, number 1, Winter