Ixcoyamec (Mdz51r)

Ixcoyamec (Mdz51r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Ixcoyamec (perhaps "At [the Place Where] Boars are Watched/Guarded") features an eye (ixtli) on the body of a coyametl, peccary. The locative suffix -c is not shown visually. The animal seems to be standing (in profile view, facing to our right) with its weight on its hind legs, and its forelegs lifted slightly. It has two white teeth and a fang. It has black hoofs. Its tail curls at the end. Its coat is colored a gray-purple, but the underbelly, neck, and chin are white. The eye that appears on its abdomen is red and white.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The hoofs and curling tail do support the peccary assessment. There were pre-Columbian peccaries, and their teeth and bones have been found in Mesoamerican archaeological sites and their images appear in a few codices, according to R. A. Donkin, in "The Peccary," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 75:5 (1985). Donkin also discusses how some peoples ate peccary flesh and others did not. According to Davide Dominici, this glyph from the Codex Mendoza is reminiscent of the coyotl with the hole (coyoctli) on its body. See Dominici's chapter, "Place Names and Political Identities in Teotihuacán Mural Paintings," in Constructing Power and Place in Mesoamerica: Pre-Hispanic Paintings from Three Regions eds. Merideth Paxton and Leticia Staines (Cicero, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2017).

If this place name is not to be read literally, it could refer to the site of one's very own (ixcoyan) magueyes (metl). If this were the case, the compound would be fully phonographic. Working against this reading is the fact that Frances Karttunen finds -ixcoyan must be possessed (as explained in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

yxcoyamec. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Ixcoyamec, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Writing Features: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

eyes, boars, pigs, peccaries, peccary, wild pig, ojos, jabalíes, cerdos, pecaríes, ixcoyametl

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 
Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 51 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 112 of 118.

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).