Ecatilma (MH860r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Ecatilma ("Wind Cape" of "Cape of Ehecatl," attested here as a man's name) shows a square cape (tilmatli) with the profile of an anthropomorphic head facing right. The head has short spiky hair and a large beak-like mouth, apparently the device through which Ehecatl, the divine force of wind, blew the wind.
Stephanie Wood
Gabrielle Vail and Christine Hernández (Re-Creating Primordial Time, 2013, ) describe Ehecatl as the wind aspect of Quetzalcoatl, and they note that Ehecatl "wears a buccal (duck) mask through which to blow wind." That the "beak" may have been perceived as a blowing device is supported by the glyph for Pitztli (below).
Gordon Whittaker has recommended preserving the spelling of Eca-, even when the intention may well be Eheca-. The Eca- spelling is pervasive. The dictionary differentiates between ecatl (air, breath) and ehecatl (wind). The reduplication of the first syllable seems to suggest there is more volume to the air and/or it has greater movement. The "cape" in this glyph is just a white square, but we know from the gloss what is meant.
Stephanie Wood
encatilmā
Ecatilma
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
viento, máscara, mascarilla, boca, aire, aliento, ropa, capa, nombres de hombres
eca(tl), air/breath, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ecatl
eheca(tl)/Ehecatl, wind, or the spirit of the wind, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ehecatl
tilma(tli), cloak or cape worn by the elite, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tilmatli
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 860r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=792&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).
