hicoxcuahuitl (HJ276:79:6r)
This iconographic image shows a fig tree (hicoxcuahuitl). It is a black and white rendition of such a tree with its root ball visible at the base. The source does not use this term, as the only alphabetic texts are in Spanish rather than Nahuatl. However, as indicated in Molina’s Vocabulario, Nahuatl speakers appear to have adopted the loanword higo, rendering it as hicox and joining it to cuahuitl, creating a neologism for “fig tree” in this way.
Robert Haskett
This iconographic image appears as one of four depictions of fig trees on a pictorial manuscript submitted by Indigenous petitioners on or around October 5, 1549, as evidence during a land dispute between the Cuernavacan community of Olac and the Marquesado del Valle. One of the pictorials found in the so-called Códice del Marquesado del Valle, it depicts a total of three outlined properties, the others planted in sugar cane or mulberry trees, each of which were related to enterprises being developed by the Marqués at the time. The plot of land in question here is said to have belonged to don Hernando, undoubtedly Cuernavaca’s powerful tlahtoani of that period. As well as featuring the place glyph for Olac and twelve xihuitl glyphs, the pictorial indicates that the plot measured forty-six (two pantli linked to six black dots, each equaling “one”) by 32 (one tecpantli linked to twelve black dots), though the unit of measure is not shown here (see the contextual image). For more information, see Códices indígenas de algunos pueblos del Marquesado, 1933 and 1883, “Códice núm. 1;" and Santiago Sánchez, Códices del Marquesado del Valle, 2003, 86-90.
See below for some other trees for possible comparisons.
Robert Haskett
Olaque ques la tierra donde estan las higueras que
son de don Hernando
Olac que es la tierra donde están las higueras que son de don Hernando
Robert Haskett
1549
Robert Haskett
figs, fig tree, higos, higueras, roots, raíces visibles, loanwords, préstamos, fruits, frutas
hicox, figs, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hicox
hicoxcuahui(tl), fig tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hicoxcuahuitl
el higo, la higuera
Robert Haskett
Single-page codex, Archivo General de la Nación, México, Ramo de Hospital de Jesús, leg. 276, Exp. 79, fol. 6r.
The Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), México, holds the original manuscript. This image is published here under a Creative Commons license, asking that you cite the AGN and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.