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. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Acaxochic, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

locative (not visual)

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Flowers

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

green (dark)

red

yellow or golden

Keywords:

flowers, lobelias, tuberous plants, reeds, flores

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

ācaxōchi(tl), tuberous lobelia, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acaxochitl
āca(tl), reed, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
xōchi(tl), flower, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xochitl
-c (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c

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"Acaxochitl Place" [Frances Karttunen, "Critique of glyph catalogue in Berdan and Anawalt edition of Codex Mendoza," unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]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