acalli (Mdz17v)

acalli (Mdz17v)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element, acalli (canoe, boat), comes from the compound place name, Acalhuacan. It features a canoe that is the orange-tan color used for wood in this manuscript. The ends curve upward and may have a flat bow and stern (as opposed to the way many canoes have pointed ends today). On the side of the canoe in the original, compound glyph (below, right), there are two thick black, vertical, parallel lines that represent the "hua" (possession) element in the place name. The simple "canoa" that we provide as iconographical support for this, stripped-down canoe, does not have those lines.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

For another sixteenth-century example of an acalli, see the Florentine Codex, Book II, folio 45 verso.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
noun(s)
possessive pronoun
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Marine, Maritime, Lacustrine
Transportation, Travel, Roads
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
black
orange/terracotta
Shapes and Perspectives: 
horizontal
Keywords: 

boats, launches, canoes, barcos, lanchas, canoas

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

acal(li), canoe or boat, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acalli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

la canoa

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 17 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 45 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).

See Also: 

Acalhuacan (Mdz17v)

acalli (Mdz4v)