Chachalacatl (MH712r)
This colorful simplex glyph for the personal name Chachalacatl (perhaps, “A Chatterbox,”), is attested as a man’s name. The glyph consists of five speech scrolls (volutes) emanating from the tax payer’s own mouth. Some curl up, some curl down, but they all emanate outward from the mouth. Two are green, two are yellow, and the middle one is red.
Stephanie Wood
A similar glyph in this collection, for the verb chachalaca, to chatter, has the scrolls emanating from a bird’s beak. This is relevant, given that the verb for chattering often refers to bird sounds. However, that one, like this one, is referencing a person who apparently speaks a lot (or perhaps jabbered as a baby).
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
hablar, chismear, charlar, nombres de hombres
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/ChachalacatlMH712rSmplxPNM.png?itok=dO3ID9DV)
chachalaca, to chatter or gossip, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chachalaca
(una persona habladora)
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 712r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=502&st=image
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).
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/ChachalacatlMH712rContext.png)