Huitzilihuitl (Azca16)

Huitzilihuitl (Azca16)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Huitzilhuitl (perhaps “Hummingbird Feathers”) is attested here as a man’s name.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The context shows a portrait of the man who held this name, sitting on a woven throne (surely, an icpalli) and speaking, as evidenced by the scroll in front of his mouth. A diadem is tied to his head; this is a symbol of this authority and nobility. A suspended wooden club with embedded obsidian blades (surely, a macuahuitl) appears in front of him, probably a symbol of the conflict surrounding his founding of Acocolco. This is the second reference to the Mexica governor on this page. Huitzilihuitl was apparently the second ruler of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, spanning the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. This glyph for the famous Huitzilihuitl–also credited in another gloss here with the founding of Chapoltepec–is considerably like some of the other examples in this digital collection (see below), with a hummingbird head surrounded by round white feathers.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

Huitzillihuitzin (reverential for Huitzilihuitl)

Gloss Normalization:

Huitzilihuitzin

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:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Birds

Feathers

Names (places)

Scrolls (Speech, Song, etc.)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

tan

white/neutral

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

volute(s)

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

outward (from inside out)

Keywords:

colibríes, pájaros, plumas, nombres de hombres famosos, nombres de gobernantes

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huitzil(in), hummingbird, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitzilin
ihui(tl), feather, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ihuitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

posiblemente, Las Plumas del Colibrí

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=16&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:

"ll" for l

Historical Contextualizing Image: