Cuicuilacatl (MH877r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Cuicuilacatl ("Painted Reed") is attested here as a man's name. It shows a frontal view of a vertical and segmented cane. There are two segments that have squiggly lines suggesting painting (from cuiloa, the verb, or cuilolli, a piece of writing or a painting). One large squiggle appears at the top. The two segments with painted designs may provide a visual reduplication to go with the reduplication seen in the gloss (Cuicuil-).
Stephanie Wood
It could be that the double "l" in the gloss is correct, and what is meant is cuicuil + tlacatl, in other words, a painted person or a painter. If so, then the reed serves as a phonetic indicator.
Marc Thouvenot identifies the verb icuiloa (or ihcuiloa, with the glottal stop), which means to paint, write, or print, as having a root of -cuil-. He notes how it also appears in tlacuiloliztli (writing), tlacuilo (writer), and cuicuiltic (mottled). He goes on to show various uses of icuiloa that take it beyond the simple definitions just given, resulting in something like the action of creating a design (e.g., on leather, ceramics, sculpture, or in textiles). It can also be something like the action of decorating (e.g., to put a flower on a cup of atole). He associates icuiloa and tlacuilolli with "cultural artifacts," such as arts and crafts or examples of writing and painting, but cuicuiltic with effects created by "nature." This short summary barely does his article justice; it is worth reading the entire piece. How Thouvenot's study might connect with the concept of bent or curved mentioned by Prem (1974: 555, 682) raises an interesting question. Perhaps the bent or curved lines of writing, painting, carving, embroidery, and so on, fall with in the realm of expressions of -cuil-. See
Marc Thouvenot, "Imágenes y escritura entre los nahuas del inicio del XVI," Estudios de Cultural Náhuatl 41 (2010).
Stephanie Wood
cuicuillacatl
Cuicuilacatl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
nombres de hombres

cuicuiloa, to paint something many colors, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cu%C4%ABcu%C4%ABlo%C4%81
cuicuiltic, something painted, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuicuiltic
aca(tl), reed or cane, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
Caña Pintada, o Persona Pintada
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 877r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=826&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).
