Cipac (MH622r)

Cipac (MH622r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black and white drawing of the glyph for the personal name Cipac ("Crocodile," attested here as a man's name) shows the animal in a vertical position with its mouth open. Its body is spiny or spiky.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Cipactli was a day sign that comes from the tonalpohualli, the 260-day divinatory calendar. Calendrics figure importantly in Nahuas' religious views of the cosmos. The thirteen-day cycle that was started by One-Cipactli was an auspicious time to be born according to a downloadable publication hosted by Mexicolore.

Because of colonial edicts to stop using the tonalpohualli as a source for names, one thing that happened is that the companion numbers (1 to 13) were dropped, perhaps as a stopgap measure to reduce the sacred nature of the name. See Norma Angélica Castilla Palma, "Las huellas del oficio y lo sagrado en los nombres nahuas de familias y barrios de Cholula," Dimensión Antropológica v. 65 (sept.-dic. 2015), 186.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

peDro
çipac

Gloss Normalization: 

Pedro Cipac

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
calendrics
day name
personal name
Syntax: 
adjective
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Animals, incl. Birds, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, etc.
Gender (male)
Mouth/Beak Open
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Religion (Indigenous)
Teeth Protruding/Noticeable
Time, Calendar, Frequency
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing right
facing upward
profile view
spiky
vertical, upright
Keywords: 

cocodrilos, calendarios, tonalpohualli, nombres de días, nombres de hombres, cipac

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

cipac(tli), crocodile, caiman, alligator, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cipactli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Cocodrilo

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 622r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=326st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

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).

Orthography: 
"çi" for ci
Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Cipac (MH595r)

Cipac (MH603v)

Oxichan (Mdz49r)

Cipac (MH632v)

Cipac (MH881r)

Cipac (MH778r)

Cipac (MH737r)

Cipac (MH713v)