Macuilecatl (MH643r)

Macuilecatl (MH643r)
Simplex Glyph
Notation

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the simples glyph plus notation for the personal name Macuilecatl ("Five Breath," "Five Air," or "Five Wind") shows an anthropomorphic head in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. Its eye is open, it has a trumpet-like device in place of an upper lip, and it has a beak-like lower lip. This kind of mouth may have been perceived to blow breath (ecatl), air (ecatl), or wind (ehecatl). The side of the face has a thick black line with a thin line next to and forward of it. Perhaps this represents face paint or tattooing. Attached at the top of and behind the head are five (macuilli) short vertical lines, connected by a horizontal line at the bottom.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Five-Wind or 5-Wind is a calendrical name that combines the notation for five with a glyph of the day sign for Ehecatl, the divine force of wind. This is a name that derives from the tonalpohualli, 260-day divinatory calendar, that people used for naming their children prior to and after contact with Europeans.

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:

ju^o macuilecatl

Gloss Normalization:

Juan Macuilecatl (or Juan Macuilehecatl)

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories:

calendrics

personal name

numbers

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Face Paint or Tattoos

Gender (male)

Mouth/Beak Open

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:

facing right

profile view

Keywords:

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

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

macuil(li), five, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/macuilli
eca(tl), air, breath, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ecatl
eheca(tl), wind or divine force of 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 643r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=368&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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: