Ayotochcuitlatla (Mdz13v)

Ayotochcuitlatla (Mdz13v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Ayotochcuitlatla (or Ayauhtochcuitlatla?) features a hybrid animal, half armadillo (ayotochtli) and half rabbit (tochtli). But the rabbit is a phonetic complement. The animal is defecating. Excrement is cuitlatl. The animal is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's left. The front half of the animal is the rabbit, a purple color (except for white teeth and a white eye). The back half of the animal has an armadillo coat, tail, and hind legs. The armadillo part is white, segmented, and textured. The excrement is shown in five pieces, all of them white. The locative suffix (-tla or -tlah, showing the glottal stop), which means place of abundance, is not shown visually. The reduplication of this syllable could support some added abundance.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

If the ayotochtli, or armadillo, is simply shown to approximate the name, the gloss that starts with Ayauh- could be correct, but Frances Karttunen believes that the place name should properly start with Ayo-, as shown in this record. The excrement provides another phonetic part (cuitlatl) of the place name, but Karttunen takes it at face value when translating the place name, too. While we can see teeth protruding from the mouth of the armadillo, these do not provide for the usual visual for the locative suffix (-tlan). So, we are going with the -tla locative suffix, as provided in the gloss, which points to the "abundance" in the translation. Berdan and Anawalt mention that the armadillo is discussed in the Florentine Codex (1950–1982), Book 11, p. 61, and in Hernández 1959, vol. 2, pp. 296–297.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

ayauhtochcuitlatla. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Ayotochcuitlatla, 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)

reduplication (in gloss/text)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals, incl. Birds, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, etc.

Names (places)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

purple

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

dotted, granular, textured

segmented

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

armadillos, rabbits, conejos, excremento

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

ayotoch(tli), armadillo, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ayotochtli
cuitla(tl), excrement, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuitlatl
-tla or -tlah (locative suffix), place of abundance of preceding noun, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"Where There is Much Armadillo Excrement" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"Where There is Much Armadillo Excrement" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 174; they spell it Ayauhtochcuitlatla)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"Lugar de Mucho Excremento de Armadillo"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 13 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 37 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).