Huitzilapan (Mdz23r)

Huitzilapan (Mdz23r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Huitzilapan (or Huitzitzilapan?) features a green hummingbird (huitzilin), with wings raised, standing in a channel of water (apantli). The channel is shown in cross section and has a trapezoidal shape. The water inside has horizontal lines of current, including one especially thick black line in the middle. Splashing off the top of the water are two white droplets or beads. The exterior of the channel has both a green and a yellow border, and the green border has multiple yellow hash marks perpendicular to it, cutting through it. Thus, the canal has a notable structure to it. The bird faces to our right. Its beak is not as long as in some other versions of the hummingbird in this collection.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

huiçilapā. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Huitzilapan, pueblo (possibly intended: Huitzitzilapan)

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals, incl. Birds, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, etc.

Names (places)

Shells

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

horizontal

cross-sectioned object

profile view

trapezoidal

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

front to back

Keywords:

birds, hummingbirds, water, agua, pájaros, colibríes

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huitzil(in), hummingbird, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitzilin
apan(tli), water channel/canal, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apantli
pan(tli), furrow, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pantli
-apan (locative suffix), on the water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apan-0
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
-pan (locative suffix), on, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"0n Hummingbird Lake" or "Hummingbird Canal" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On the Water of the Hummingbird" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 188)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"En el Lago del Colibrí" o "En el Canal del Colibrí"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 23 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 56 of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).