Cuatetl (MH714r)

Cuatetl (MH714r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the personal name, Cuatetl (perhaps “Head of Stone”), is attested here as pertaining to a woman. The glyph shows a horizontal, striped, red and white stone with curling ends. This stone sits atop the head (cuaitl) of the very woman being named.

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: 
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)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Gender (female)
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
red
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
diagonal or angled
facing right
horizontal
frontal view
profile view
striped
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
upward
Keywords: 

cabezas, piedras, nombres de mujeres, nombres negativas, porfiada, tonta, tenaz

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

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

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

posiblemente, Cabeza de Piedra

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 714r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=506&st=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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Cuachal (MH537v)

Cuachil (MH517v)

Cuacuauh (MH483r)

Cuaitz (MH537r)