huilana (MH497v)
The image for this element, the verb huilana, to drag, is shared with the compound Tepehuilan, which refers to a hill or mountain (tepetl) that is being dragged. The act of dragging involves a rope or cord (probably a mecatl), which is shown here running along in front of the mountain. The rope or cord seems to be twisted.
Stephanie Wood
If it seems unusual to think of hills or mountains being dragged or moved, I remember a story from a small town in the Mixteca, Magdalena Peñasco, which is next to a peak. Oral tradition there says that the peak used to be bigger, but it broke, and part of it went to the coast.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
arrastrar, drag, dragging, pulling, pull, jalar
huilana, to go along dragging or crawling on all fours, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huilana
arrastrar
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 497v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=74&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).