Chahuazquimetl (TK207v)

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the personal name Chahuazquimetl (perhaps “The Subject of Women’s Jealousy” or perhaps their cruelty), attested here as a man’s name. The compound has three elements, and the reading order is downward. The first element is what appears to be a house, which is usually a calli, but here it is a chantli, a home. Chantli supplies the phonetic syllable -cha- for the start of the name. The next element is a semantic contributor. It shows a woman seated in the classic posture with her legs underneath her. Her hairstyle and clothing are also classic for an adult woman. She apparently serves here as a commentary on women, in general, because she has been chosen to represent “jealous women” (chahuazquime). Finally, the third element at the bottom is an agave plant (metl), which provides the phonetic syllable that appears at the end of the name (as glossed). It may be unusual to turn the plural suffix -me (or -meh with the glottal stop) into a substantive suffix, -metl, but sometimes personal names do not follow the same rules as nouns that are not proper.