Huitzilihuitl (Azca21)

Huitzilihuitl (Azca21)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted black-line drawing of the compound gloss for the personal name Huitzilihuitl (perhaps “Hummingbird Feathers”) shows the head of a hummingbird (huitzilin) facing toward the viewer’s right.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

We are calling this a glyph even lacking a gloss, being certain of its interpretation when based upon comparisons with other compound glyphs of this name. Normally, what are called iconographic examples in this digital collection are so labelled due to the lack of a confirming gloss. However, ideally, comparisons with glossed glyphs will help bear out the interpretations. Note the examples of Huitzilihuitl glyphs, below. Most are just a head.

Added 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:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Birds

Feathers

Gender (male)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

white/neutral

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

outward (from inside out)

Keywords:

colibrí, colibries, pájaros, plumas, nombres de hombres

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:

Plumas de 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=21&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.

Historical Contextualizing Image: