Matlalaca (MH831v)

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Matlalaca (perhaps “Blue-Green Reeds”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows an elaborately designed flower in a frontal view. It has four large, rounded petals, a large central circle, and four tiny circles, one each between each of the larger petals. The petals also have a two-tone coloring effect, where half is dark and half is light, but developing a swirl much like the ilhuitl signs on the Codex Mendoza, f. 19r, and other codices represented in this collection. At the heart of the flower are short lines radiating out from the central circle, much like tonalli (sun, day, heat of the sun) in some other glyphs. Finally, this compound also shows a group of three segmented canes protruding from the upper right side of the flower. They are reminiscent of the type of cane that is called carrizo in Mexico today.