Huehuetoca (Azca13)

Huehuetoca (Azca13)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This colorful painting of the compound glyph for the place name Huehuetoca shows a horizontal stone (tetl) with diagonal lines through the middle and curling ends. This stone could also be interpreted as a hill (tepetl) which has the red-and-yellow slit at the bottom, the potential site for spring water to emerge, which makes this into an atl (water)-tepetl (hill or mountain) or altepetl (socio-political unit). Sitting on top of this stone-hill-springwater sign is a standing drum, the huehuetl, which is the principal visual for the place name beginning Huehue-. The legs of the drum have a stepped shape and three swirls running horizontally across the top half of the drum. Stripes enclose the swirls above and below them. The drum is largely red, with a little bit of grey on the right side.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Huehuetoca was a settlement apparently made during the migration that would eventually end up settling Mexico-Tenochtitlan. According to the migration account, the divine force Huitzilopochtlil was directing the migrating group. Today, Huehuetoca is in the State of Mexico. The drum is apparently a phonetic indicator for the term huehue, old. And the second part of the name, -toca, may be short for tocaitl (name). Together huehuetocaitl refers to the origin of a lineage, as translated by Alonso de Molina. See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

Hueguetoca

Gloss Normalization:

Huehuetoca

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Azcatitlan, Codex (Azca)

Date of Manuscript:

post-1550, possibly from the early seventeenth century.

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

perhaps Tlatelolco, Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Music, Song, Dance

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

stepped

striped

Keywords:

piedras, cerros, montañas, tambores, pueblos, topónimos, nombres de lugares

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huehuetoca(itl), origin of a lineage, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huehuetocaitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

[Lugar del] Origen del Linaje

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

The Codex Azcatitlan is also known as the Histoire mexicaine, [Manuscrit] Mexicain 59–64. It is housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and hosted on line by the World Digital Library and the Library of Congress, which is “unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.”
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15280/?sp=13&st=image

Image Source, Rights:

The Library of Congress is “unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.” But please cite Bibliothèque Nationale de France and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.

Orthography:

"g" for h

Historical Contextualizing Image: