Chimalmama (MH897r)

When considering the name Chimalmama, a much more common name is Chimalman, perhaps given to girls in honor of this same teomama (a person who carried the divine force of Huitzilopochtli) in an early migration. This name is quite close to that one.

The jury is still out, but if the name Chimalan ends in -man, this would render a translation of "She is Like a Shield." If the second part of her name is simply -ma, then some see a reference to the hand (maitl), and thus some translate her name as "Shield Bearer." But Chimalmama ("She Carries a Shield") also comes close to that translation, and the stem for mama (to carry) could be man-. Sometimes names are apocopated, dropping letters at the end. This example is currently our only Chimalmama in the database (March 2025). It contributes a great deal of insight, however, into the possible decipherment of the Chimalman hieroglyph.

Chimalman was the name of a famous deity-bearer--carrying Huitzilopochtli and/or his accoutrements) in the famous migration from Aztlan captured in the Tira de la Peregrinación. (See: Angela Herren Rajagopalan, Portraying the Aztec Past, 2018, 29.) For Alfredo López Austin, The Myth of Quetzalcoatl, 2015, 150), Chimalman was a progenitor/mother worthy of note, related to the concept of mother earth. In this case, from the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, the name is being used by an elder (ilama) commoner (macehualli) woman. She does not have a title by her name, such as the imported term, doña.