ilhuitl (TK218r)

This black-line drawing of the simplex Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the word for day (ilhuitl). There is no gloss in Nahuatl, but the Spanish word for day is found in the gloss. The hieroglyph appears in a horizontal rectangle that may represent a flag, intending in this case tecpantli (twenty). The context shows a notation of four dots underneath the glyph, serving as a multiplier, and the Spanish text refers to eighty days. Thus, 4 x 20 would be eighty. But the flag is not obvious. Being inside a rectangular border is also something witnessed as an indicator of time, such as the way a year (xihuitl) is also boxed as a rule. Inside the rectangle are two shapes. The one on the left is too obscure to make out, but the one on the right looks much like the sign for tonalli, a quincunx shape. The reference to eighty days is part of the narrative about how the local Spanish authority made an unreasonable demand of the local Nahua leader, and when he refused he was dragged off to the Spaniard’s ranch, where he had to guard the sheep for eighty days as punishment.