Acaxochic (Mdz32r)

Acaxochic (Mdz32r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph is a flower that is a type of lobelia, ācaxōchitl), standing for the full name of the town, Acaxochic, minus the -c locative suffix, which is not represented visually. The flower is a bright red, somewhat reminiscent of the cardinal flower or the flower of the canna lily, but it is a tuberous flower in the lobelia family. It has a green stem and a small yellow tip above the red. The word ācaxochitl is a compound of sorts with two parts, ācatl), or reed, and xōchitl), flower.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

According to Frances Karttunen, the -c suffix is a short form of the locative suffix -co.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

acaxochic. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Acaxochic, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Keywords: 

flowers, lobelias, tuberous plants, reeds, flores

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"Acaxochitl Place" [Frances Karttunen, "Critique of glyph catalogue in Berdan and Anawalt edition of Codex Mendoza," unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"On the Acaxochitl" (Berdan & Anawalt, v. 1, p. 168)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 32 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 74 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).