Cincozcac (Mdz34r)

Cincozcac (Mdz34r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Cincozcac features three maize cobs (cintli), two yellow and one red, strung on a green (possibly leather?) thong that ties at the top, making them into a necklace (cozcatl). The locative suffix (-c) is not shown visually.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The word cintli implied dried maize cobs, the kind that can be degrained, with kernels that could be ground. It may be significant that the red cob is the one that would hang over the chest, perhaps symbolizing a heart? A contemporary Chicana artist, Yolanda Guerra, has merged heart imagery with corn kernels in a print from 2014.

Berdan and Anawalt (1992, 1:`85) point out that the glyph for Cincozcac in the Matrícula de Tributos (7v) has all three cobs colored red.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

cincozcac. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Cincozcac, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

locative (not visual)

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Agriculture, Gardens, Stockraising

Corn, Maize

Food, Eating, Cooking

Jewelry, Crowns, or other Adornment

Leather, hides

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

green (dark)

red

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

tripartite

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

inherent/internal/merged

Reading Order, Notes:

The maize cobs have become part of the necklace. They are merged into one thing, athough they represent two different nouns.

Keywords:

maize, corn, maíz, mazorcas, elotes, collares, necklaces, centli

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

cin(tli), dried ears of maize, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cintli
cozca(tl), necklace, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cozcatl-0
-c (locative suffix), on or in, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"Maize Necklace Place" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On the Maize Jewel" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 185)

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 34 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 78 of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).