Maquequexqui (MH839v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Maquequexquic (“He Suffered from Itchy Hands””) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a frontal view of a flat hand (maitl) at an angle, leaning somewhat to the viewer’s right. On top of the back of the hand is a spiral, which is a semantic indicator of the verb for having a terrible itch (quequexquia).
Stephanie Wood
The tlacuilos of this manuscript had various ways for showing things relating to the sensory perceptions. Here, a swirl represents a terrible itch. Elsewhere, one will find visual sound (such as volutes emitting from a bell, or from a speaker or a singer), visual odor (such as a person emitting gas), visual fragrance (coming off a flower). The swirl on the hand has various uses, such as showing a whirlpool or an omen.
Stephanie Wood
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/MaquequexquiMH839vSmplxPNM.png?itok=Dvxc28DD)
ma(itl), hand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/maitl
quequexquia, to suffer from a terrible itch, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/quequexquia
Tuvo Comezón en las Manos
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 839v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=753&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).