Coazaca (MH647v)
This painting of the simplex glyph for the personal name Coazaca ("Serpent-Hay") is attested here as a man's name. The glyph shows a black serpent in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. It has a speckled head, an open eye, and an open mouth with a protruding bifurcated tongue. At the left end of the snake is a suggestion of a rattle. The element for -zaca (straw, hay, weeds, grass) is not shown visually or it is not obvious.
Stephanie Wood
Perhaps this name, Coazaca, is something like "Snake in the Grass," but it is difficult to translated based on this visual alone. Coazacatzin was the name of a famous Nahua ruler of Teohuacan Amaquemecan. He was a leader from a young age, but his mother ruled in his stead for a time. [See: Kay A. Read and Jane Rosenthal, "The Chalcan Woman's Song," The Americas 62:3 (January 2006), 318.]
The gloss "tlama" suggests this man may have been a physician or surgeon.
Stephanie Wood
pedro cohuaçaca tlama
Pedro Coazaca, tlama
Stephanie Wood
1560
Stephanie Wood
nombres de gobernantes famosos, Coazacatzin, serpientes, paja, zacate, nombres de hombres
coa(tl), snake or serpent, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coatl
zaca(tl), weeds, grass, hay, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/zacatl
tlama, a physician or surgeon, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlama-1
Serpiente-Zacate
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 647r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=377&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).
