etecpantli (Osu13r)
This painted simplex Nahuatl hieroglyph and notation shows three flags (normally, pantli or pamitl, but here standing for tecpantli), one on the top of each of three (eyi, abbreviated here as a prefix) men’s heads. Each head with a flag above it stands for twenty laborers in formation (a row or line), for a total of sixty workers. The workers’ heads are shown in profile facing toward the viewer’s right, while the white paper or cloth banners on the flags are flying to the left. The posts of the flags are probably made of wood. This is a reference to three teams of twenty tribute laborers per group.
Stephanie Wood
One might see the flag (pantli) as a phonetic indicator for tecpantli, but it also had a semantic value, in that the leaders of these teams of twenty workers held up a flag for them to come and get in line. (See centecpanpia, below.)
As shown in the contextualizing image, this scene is torn on the right edge, and some of the content is lost, along with some of the text. Dr. Puga, the abusive Spanish colonial magistrate, seems to have been demanding these laborers. In most cases in this manuscript, the Nahuas were protesting abuses. They did get some recompense from the viceroy, but not for everything they were protesting.
Stephanie Wood
Etecpantli
etecpantli
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Jeff Haskett-Wood
trabajador, trabajo, tributo, tributos, abusos, colonialismo, protesta, protestas, resistencia
tecpan(tli), twenty, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecpantli
pan(tli), flag, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pantli
tres equipos de veinte, o sesenta [trabajadores]
Stephanie Wood
Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.
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