Huitzitzilapan (Mdz32r)

Huitzitzilapan (Mdz32r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Huitzitzilapan features a green hummingbird (huitzilin) with wings raised, standing in a water channel (apantli), which has a yellow outline that suggests some structure. The turquoise water in the trapezoidal cross section of a canal or water channel includes horizontal black lines seemingly to indicate current. Two of these lines are especially thick. Splashing off the water are turbinate shells and droplets (possibly meant to symbolize local jade stones?). The bird is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's right. The duplicated syllable in the middle of huitzilin is not featured visually.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

huitziçilapa. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Huitzitzilapan, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

reduplication (in gloss/text)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

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

Movement

Names (places)

Religion (Indigenous)

Shells

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

trapezoidal

profile view

cross-sectioned object

horizontal

facing right

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 or at the waters of, 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"0n Hummingbird Lake" or "Hummingbird Canal" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]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 32 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 74 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).