Maceuhqui (MH689r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Maceuhqui (“Dancer”) is attested here as a man’s name. It shows a feathered headdress attached to the head of the tribute payer. The feather device appears to include four quetzal feathers, bound at their base and then attached to the person’s hair. This must be a device that is recognized as one to be worn by a dancer.
Stephanie Wood
The tlacuilo apparently started to draw a hand, which is still visible in the contextualizing image. Perhaps the feather device was originally going to be hand-held, and then the tlacuilo changed his mind. See below for glyphs where such a device appears on a person’s head or, alternatively, in a hand. The hand can serve as a phonetic indicator for the -ma- syllable in these various names.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
plumas, danzas, bailadores, bailes, tocados, manos, nombres de hombres
maceuhqui, dancer, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/maceuhqui
macehua, to merit, to be deserving, or to dance, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/macehua
Bailador
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 689r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=458&st=image.
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).