Mauhcanemitl (MH523r)

Mauhcanemitl (MH523r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph of the personal name Mauhcanemitl ("One Who Lives Fearfully") shows two footprints, the one on the left pointed upwards and the one on the right pointed downwards. Both of these footprints are contained inside a circle. The toes are drawn hastily, for the one on the right only has four toe prints. The footprints refer to the verb nemi, to live or go about, which is close to the last part of the name, -nemitl. Nemini is a resident; might nemitl be someone who lives or goes about? The "fearful" part of the name is not shown visually, unless there could be something frightening about the circle.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The fearful element (mauhca) could just possibly be indicated by the ambivalence of the direction of the footprints, or the circle that contains them, perhaps indicating that the person had limited freedom because of the fear--? Footprint glyphs have a wide range of translations. In this collection, so far, we can attest to yauh, xo, pano, -pan, paina, temo, nemi, quetza, otli, iyaquic hualiloti, huallauh, tetepotztoca, totoco, -tihui, and the vowel "o." Other research (Herrera et al, 2005, 64) points to additional terms, including: choloa, tlaloa, totoyoa, eco, aci, quiza, maxalihui, centlacxitl, and xocpalli.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

Juo mauhca nemitl

Gloss Normalization: 

Juan Mauhcanemitl

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
Writing Features: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood and Daniel Chayet

Shapes and Perspectives: 
Parts (of compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

to go about fearfully, ir con miedo

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 
Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

El Que Anda con Miedo

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 523r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=125&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: