Michhuacan (TR25v)

Michhuacan (TR25v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Michhuacan (spelled Michoacán today and meaning "Place with Fish") shows a fish (michin) on top of a mountain or hill that provides a stand-in for the -can locative suffix. The fish is horizontal and shown in profile view, facing toward the viewer's right. Its scales and fins are drawn in fine detail. Its visible eye is open, and its mouth is open slightly, too. This hill or mountain is bell-shaped and entirely green except for the white horizontal line toward the base. The slopes have curling, rocky outcroppings (as seen on the tetl, stone, glyph below). The -hua- in the place name refers to possession, and the -can says "the place where."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

There is a reason Michoacán bears this name, given the historical strength of its lakes for fishing. The freshwater whitefish (pescado blanco, in Spanish) and catfish (tilapia) are popular in recipes in Mexican cuisine still today. The popular stew, caldo michi, has a name that closely approximates the original Nahuatl term for fish (michin). In The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, Diana Kennedy (2009, 135) shares a recipe for this stew provided by a woman in Pátcuaro, Michoacan.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Source Manuscript:

Telleriano-Remensis, Codex (TR)

Date of Manuscript:

ca. 1550–1563

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

locative (visual but silent)

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Fish/Shellfish/Snails

Food, Eating, Cooking

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

green (dark)

green (light)

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

bird's eye view

facing right

profile view

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

fish, peces, pescado, nombres de lugares

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

mich(in), fish, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/michin
hua, possession, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hua
-can, locative suffix, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/can-2

Image Source:

Telleriano-Remensis Codex, folio 25 recto, MS Mexicain 385, Gallica digital collection, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458267s/f76.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights:

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.”