Cuatetl (MH633r)

Cuatetl (MH633r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Cuatetl (perhaps "Head of Stone") is attested here as a woman's name. It shows the head (cua-) of a woman in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. Her face has wrinkles, which are likely a reference to her age. She has the classic Nahua woman's hairstyle (neaxtlahualli), with two points, one on either side of the forehead. Above the top or crown of her head sits a horizontal stone (tetl), with its classic diagonal lines in alternating colors, a light end and a dark end, and these ends each have a triad of curls.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

A stone head could be a carved sculpture. Or, one wonders whether the baby who originally received this name had a hard head. But Manuel Berra y Orozco (1880, 466) read the name as meaning “porfiado, tonto, tenaz” (stubborn, stupid, tenacious). A man named Santiago Chiquito Cuatetl was mentioned in Proceso magazine (Issues 765-778, p. 31) in 1991, so the name has lived on in contemporary Nahua society. For other names starting with “Cua-” see below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

anā
quatetl

Gloss Normalization:

Ana Cuatetl

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:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Aging (People, Animals, Things)

Anatomy, human body parts

Gender (female)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

diagonal or angled

facing right

profile view

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

striped

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

upward

Keywords:

stones, piedras, heads, cabezas, peaks, picos, nombres de mujeres, viejas, viudas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

cua(itl), head, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuaitl
te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl-0

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

literalmente, Cabeza-Piedra

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 633r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=348st=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:

"q" for c

intrusive overbar

Historical Contextualizing Image: