calli (MH483r)

calli (MH483r)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element shares the compound sign for the personal name, Petlacalcatl. Separating the woven mat (petlatl) from the building or house (calli) would be a challenge. This house or building stands in profile, facing to the viewer's right. The usual wooden beam across the top of the entrance is not shown here. Also, the upright beam is painted black at the bottom.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

When calli was a name, it probably had a calendrical origin, i.e. drawing from the day or year in the calendar that the person was born. Calli was a popular name. "They said the good days were Reed, Monkey, Crocodile, Eagle, House" (central Mexico, sixteenth century). See: Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 129.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
calendrics
year name
day name
personal name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Architecture, Construction, Buildings
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Time, Calendar, Frequency
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing right
profile view
rectangular
right angle(s)
vertical, upright
woven
Keywords: 

houses, buildings, casas, edificios, nombres, names, calendarios, calendars, xiuhpohualli, año, turquesa, xihuitl

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

calli, house, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calli

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=45&st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).

Historical Contextualizing Image: