Mimich (MH490r)

Mimich (MH490r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Mimich ("Fish," attested here as a man's name) consists of a horizontal fish shown in profile looking to the viewer's right. It has a bifurcated tail and four fins. It has a line drawn the length of the fish and short lines connecting this central line with the edges of the fish.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

This is a personal name, preceded in the gloss by a Christian first name (Toribio). He may have been named after Toribio de Benavente, also known as Motolinia ("One Who is Poor or Afflicted"). This was the first word he learned in Nahuatl, and he went on to learn the language well. He lived in the monastery in Huejotzingo. Doing a quick search for the name "Toribio" will produce an impressive result.

The gloss for this name includes a reduplication of the first syllable, but there is no corresponding visual reduplication. Magnus Pharao Hansen defines Mimich as "Little Fish." [See his blog from 2014, "Nahuatl Names: The Nahuatl names in the 1544 census of Morelos."] There is a Mimich, for which this man may have been named, who was a Cloud Serpent paired with Xiuhnel and associated with hunting. And the translators of the Primeros Memoriales say that Xiuhnel and Mimich were prominent figures in many migration stories of central Mexican cultures. See the Sullivan and Nicholson edition of the PM (1997, 135).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

thorivio mimich

Gloss Normalization: 

Toribio Mimich

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzinco, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Keywords: 

fish, peces, pescado, Serpientes de las Nubes, Cloud Serpents, hunting, cazar, nombres de hombres

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

Mimich, a cloud serpent and divine force associated with hunting, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/Mimich
mich(in), fish, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/michin

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

El Pececito

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 490r, World Digital Library. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=59&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).

Orthography: 
Historical Contextualizing Image: