Cuauhtecatl (MH727v)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name or ethnicity, Cuauhtecatl (“Person from Cuauhtlan,” also spelled as Cuauhtla, today), is shown here as the head of an eagle (cuauhtli) in profile, facing toward the viewer’s right. Its eye and beak are both open. At the top of its head are spiky, curving feathers, but at the neck are short vertical feathers. Below the eagle’s head is a horizontal bar. This may refer to the verb tequi (to cut), or perhaps the noun tequitl (work), either of which could serve as a phonetic indicator for the -tecatl affiliation suffix. See below for examples of tequi and tequit that involve black bars.
Stephanie Wood
The place name associated with this ethnicity, Cuauhtla or Cuauhtlan, could refer to a place near some woods, but perhaps it would be Cuauhtitlan if woods and not eagles were the intention. At any rate, one of the examples in this collection for a place named Cuauhtlan (Mictlan Cuauhtlan) does show a tree (cuahuitl).
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
águilas, monte, nombres de personas, etnicidades
cuauh(tli), eagle, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuauhtli
-tecatl (affiliation suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/teca-0
(una persona de Cuauhtlan o Cuauhtla)
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 727v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=533&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).