Cihuatecpanecatl (MH686r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Cihuatecpanecatl (“Person from Cihuatecpan”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows the head of a woman, facing toward the viewer’s right. This is a logogram for the place name that starts with Cihua-, upon which this ethnicity is based. The tribute payer himself also has two stripes on his cheek, supplying a phonetic “hua” (from the verb huahuana, to make stripes), which underlines the intention of Cihua- as the start to the place name/ethnic name. In fact, in some cases, these stripes refer to the entire element, cihua or cihuatl, as in the case of Cuetlachteca Cihuatl (MH608r).
Stephanie Wood
The two vertical stripes on a human cheek can be found on the head of a man or a woman. The stripes on the cheek of the tribute payer in this case are not likely not a remark about his gender or sexuality. Also, in this case, the female gender is probably only incidental to his name, given that it comes from the name of the town of origin (which bears on his ethnicity).
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
mujeres, género, sílabo “hua,” pueblos, nombres de lugares, nombres de hombres
cihua(tl), woman, (affiliation suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cihuatl
tecpan, royal palace, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecpan
huahuana, to make stripes, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huahuana
-ecatl (affiliation suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ecatl-0
Persona de Cihuatecpan
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 686r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=452&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).
