cuicatl (Verg10r)

cuicatl (Verg10r)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the element (cuicatl) from the compound glyph for the personal name Cen Icuic (“Entirely His Song,” attested there as a man’s name) shows a person's head in profile, facing the viewer's right. A segmented speech scroll emerges from the mouth. The person's hair is bound up at the back of the head in a way reminiscent of women, except that the two points of hair above the forehead are not there.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Scrolls for songs will sometimes have interventions (designs, segmentation, special colors) that speech scrolls do not typically have. See other examples below.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Vergara, Codex (Verg)
Date of Manuscript: 

1539

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Tepetlaoztoc, near Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories: 
personal name
Syntax: 
verb
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Gender (female)
Gender (male)
Hair (human or animal)
Music, Song, Dance
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Scrolls (Speech, Song, etc.)
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing left
profile view
segmented
spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling
volute(s)
Keywords: 

speech, speak, hablar, voluta

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

cuica(tl), song, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuicatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

hablar

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Vergara, folio 10r, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84528032/f27.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights: 

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.” We would also appreciate a citation to the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/.

See Also: 

Cen Icuic (Verg10r)

Xochicuic (MH508v)

cuicatl (Mdz43r)

cuicatl (Mdz70r)