Huitzilatl (MH525r)

Huitzilatl (MH525r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Huitzilatl (here, attested as a man’s name) shows a frontal view of a plant--perhaps a plant with thorns (huitztli--and five streams of water (atl) coming out from under the plant. Each stream ends in a droplet or bead.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The presence of either an "l" or even a double "ll," as the gloss appears to have, would suggest that the root could be huitzilin, hummingbird. But the visual elements of the glyph do not include a hummingbird. The person who bears this name seems to have been named after an illustrious autonomous-era person, the grandson of Huitzilihuitl, ruler of Tenochtitlan, called Huitzillatzin (spelled with a double l). It is also worth noting that Huitzilatl was the name of a special spring where water was obtained for bathing captive slaves nine days before they were to be sacrificed to the deities. This spring was between Coyoacan and Huitzilopochco. (See the Online Nahuatl Dictionary.)

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

juan huitzillatl

Gloss Normalization:

Juan Huitzilatl

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

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

Gender (male)

Gifts, Offerings, Sacrifice

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Politics, Power, Governance

Religion (Indigenous)

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

frontal view

spiky

vertical, upright

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

birds, pájaros, colibríes, hummingbirds, water, agua, natural springs, ojos de agua, agua, plantas, sacrificio humano, bañar a cautivos o esclavos, nombres de hombres, nombres famosos

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

Huitzillatzin, an autonomous-era ruler of Huitzilopochco, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitzillatzin
Huitzilatl, a special spring and source of water relating to human sacrifice, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitzilatl
huitzil(in), hummingbird, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitzilin
huitz(tli), thorns, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitztli
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

Colibrí-Agua (?)

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 525r, World Digital Library.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=129

Image Source, Rights:

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: