Huitzilpopoca (MH507r)

Huitzilpopoca (MH507r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Huitzilpopoca shows the had of a hummingbird (huitzilin) which is smoking (popoca, the verb, to smoke]. the bird's head is shown in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. Its visible eye seems to be open, as is its beak. Appropriately for this particular bird, it has a long beak. It has short hairs coming off the top and back of its head, and it has some texturing on its face. The smoke is drawn in a gray, and it curls from all sides of the bird's head and even from its beak.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

That a hummingbird could be thought to smoke may derive from Book 11 of the Florentine Codex, which describes hummingbird feathers as being like a flame and burning, as noted by Allison Caplan (2020, 390). See comparisons for hummingbirds and curls of smoke, below. There was a known figure in early Tollan named Huitzilpopoca. He was a "speaker," according to a 1558 huehuetlahtolli record translated by Willard Gingerich. [See his free, online publication, "TLAMACHILIZTLAHTOLÇAÇANILLI: A Performance Translation of the Náhuatl 'Wisdom-Discourse Fables' from the Manuscript of 1558" (2022). Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 119.]

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

lurreço
huitzilpopo^ca

Gloss Normalization:

Lorenzo Huitzilpopoca

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

verb

Cultural Content & Iconography:

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

Fire, Tobacco, Incense, Smoke

Gender (male)

Mouth/Beak Open

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Religion (Indigenous)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

pointed (see also spiky)

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

outward (from inside out)

Keywords:

birds, págjaros, hummingbirds, colibríes, smoke, smoking, humo, humear

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huitzil(in), hummingbird, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huitzilin
popoca, to smoke, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/popoca

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

El Colibrí Humeante(?)

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 507r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=93&st=image

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: