On folio 76r of the colonial Central Mexican painted manuscript Codex Magliabechiano, a large, round-eyed figure with disheveled black hair and skeletal head and limbs stares menacingly at the viewer . he bloodpours onto the ground in front of the figure’s outspread legs, where asnake dangles in the Magliabecchiano image. Who were these frightening beings? The anonymous Spanish commentary to the Codex Magliab echiano image identfies the figure on folio 76r as a Zizimitl [Tzitzimitl], one of a group of supernaturalscollectively known to the Aztec inhabitants of Central Mexico as the Tzitzimime. In the decades following the 1521 Spanish conquest of Mexico, the Tzitzimime were almost always described as fear some creatures of darkness who might descend to earth at certain critical moments to eat people. The implicationis that the Tzitzimime were either exclusively or typically male. Both the Magliabechiano and Tudela figures, however, wear a distinctive skirtbordered on the bottom by a row of shells. Shells likewise border thered panel, or back apron, seen hanging behind the Tudela figure’s legs.Not only were skirts quintessential female garments in Aztec Mexico,but the red, shell-bordered back panel almost always appears in Aztecimagery on female figures. In contrast to the commentator’sidentification of the Tzitzimitl depicted in Codex Magliabechiano, then,the native artists of both manuscripts apparently perceived theTzitzimime as female