Chicon (MH484r)

What is curious is whether the number in this man's name was once accompanied by a calendrical day sign. Chiconquiyauh would have the same Chincon- start to the name. Chicomacatl is also a popular name, for example. It combines the number seven--Chicom-, in this case, before a day name starting with a vowel, acatl (reed/cane). The ceramic piece here is not a day sign. It is also curious that it would be seen as necessary to reinforce the -con ending on the number. There is one other example, however (see below). Still, normally, we treat the calendrical names as a simplex glyph (of the day sign) and a notation (the number that is the companion of the day sign), placing it strategically in the calendar. As calendrical names evolved, it was more common to see the number drop away and the day sign remain. But an important exception is the personal name Macuilli (simply, "Five"). That said, calendrics still figured importantly in Nahuas' religious views of the cosmos in 1560.

If the day name that accompanied the number in this name was dropped to disguise the continuing use of the calendar, it may represent an attempt to avoid trouble with the colonial clergy. Serious events in 1539 may have made Nahua tlacuilos more cautious when writing and painting about aspects of their faith even twenty-one years later. See Patricia Lopes Don for information about the Inquisition case against don Carlos Ometochtli, a Chichimecatecuhtli (or Chichimecateuctli) executed in late 1539, in Bonfires of Culture, 2010. Bradley Benton (The Lords of Tetzcoco, 2017, 46) also writes that the case “demonstrates that blatant disregard for Christianity had serious consequences.”