Ecatl (MH484v)

A great many glyphs in this collection start with Eca- when one might expect Eheca-. We are preserving the proclivity of the gloss for Eca-, while also pointing to the likelihood of an unintentional oral abbreviation of Eheca- to Eca-. The gloss here gives "Ecatl," but the visuals suggest "Ehecatl."

The V-shape that is coming from the man's mouth is reminiscent of the beak (or what some sources describe as a duck bill) that can be seen on the representation of Ehecatl (the divine or sacred force associated with the wind in the autonomous-era stone carving in the museum in Calixtlahuaca and as shown below in other Ehecatl glyphs in this collection). Several additional stone carvings said to represent the divine or sacred force of the wind have broken-off beaks, such as this one in the British Museum. The association can make some sense, given that wind (ehecatl) is breath(ecatl) reduplicated (with the repetition of the first syllable). The black line (face paint?) across this man's face has yet to be analyzed, but in this manuscript at least, it is a diagnostic for Ehecatl. Another version of this glyph, bearing the same black line and a similar beak-like symbol in the mouth, also appears on folio 484 verso of the Matrícula de Huexotzinco. The breath (or element of the buccal mask) in that case is tipped up a little bit. (See below.) Importantly, wind was a day sign in the calendar, and calendrics figured prominently in Nahuas' religious views on the cosmos.

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).