Macuilecatl (MH623r)

Macuilecatl (MH623r)
Simplex Glyph
Notation

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph plus a notation for the personal name Macuilecatl (presumably, “Five-Wind,” attested here as a man’s name) shows a profile view of a man (facing toward the viewer's right) with a large beak that recalls the deity or divine force of the wind, Ehecatl. On the top of the man's head are five, short, vertical lines representing the notation for the number five. The beak is open, as is the visible eye.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This is a calendrical name, a day sign in the 260-day divinatory calendar called the tonalpohualli, and calendrics are significant in the Nahuas' religious views of the cosmos. The person who bore the name was likely born on the day of 5-Wind. It is not unusual to have glosses that do not include the reduplication of the word for wind, ehecatl, but only the word for air or breath, ecatl. A great many glyphs in this collection start with Eca- when one might expect Eheca-. We are preserving the proclivity of the gloss for Eca-, while also pointing to the likelihood of an unintentional oral abbreviation of Eheca- to Eca-. Perhaps ecatl means not just air and breath, but also wind.

Gabrielle Vail and ‎Christine Hernández (Re-Creating Primordial Time, 2013, ) describe Ehecatl as the wind aspect of Quetzalcoatl, and they note that Ehecatl "wears a buccal (duck) mask through which to blow wind." That the "beak" may have been perceived as a blowing device is supported by the glyph for Pitztli (below).

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

goçalo
macuilecatl

Gloss Normalization:

Gonzalo Macuilecatl (or Gonzalo Macuilehecatl?)

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories:

calendrics

day name

numbers

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Gender (male)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Numbers, Math

Religion (Indigenous)

Time, Calendar, Frequency

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

profile view

linear or multiple straight lines

facing right

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

números, cinco, viento, aliento, aire, calendarios, días, nombres de hombres

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

macuil(li), five, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/macuilli
eca(tl), breath or air, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ecatl
eheca(tl), wind or the divine force of the wind, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ehecatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

Cinco-Viento, o 5-Viento

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 623r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=328&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).

Orthography:

"ç" for z or tz

dropped "n"

Historical Contextualizing Image: