Cuitlapil (Verg29r)

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph is a black-line drawing of the personal name Cuitlapil (“Animal Tail”), attested here as a man’s name. It shows a segmented or striped object (a cuitlapil, a tail, perhaps a ringtail) curling to the left. At its base are two front teeth (tlantli), which serve as a phonetic complement to the -tla- part of the name. Another very similar Cuitlapil compound hieroglyph appears on folio 31 verso. Animal tails with rings are found on raccoons, monkeys, coatis, and lemurs, for example.