Cuextecatl (TK207v)

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the personal name or ethnicity Cuextecatl, associated with the Huasteca region of Mexico. The compound seems to have three elements, read in a downward direction. At the top is the head of a man in profile, looking left. He wears a gray feathered headdress with a red tie at the back of his head. His mouth is slightly open and he has a nose ornament. Below his chin is a rectangular textile with horizontal stripes in red, gray, and white. From top to bottom, the stripes are as follows: a mesh pattern with diamonds with dots in the middle, a plain white band, a plain red band, a stripe with S-shapes lying horizontally. This textile might be a skirt (cueitl), perhaps with the intention of providing a phonetic syllable -cue-. If so, it would be the first to enter this collection. Finally, at the lower end of the compound is the lower part of a human face in profile, facing left, and supplying the phonetic syllable -te- from tentli (lips) to introduce the final affiliation suffix, -tecatl.