Mimich (MH521r)

Mimich (MH521r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Mimich ("Little Fish," attested here as a man's name) consists of a frontal view of a vertical fish (michin). The fish has a line drawn the length of its body, plus scales and small fins coming off the edges of the fish. It almost appears to be a double fish.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The name is reduplicated in the gloss, and the nearly doubling of the fish might possibly be a visual reduplication, but there are several artists in the Huexotzinco area who have a straight, vertical line down the middle of the fish (as in this case).

Magnus Pharao Hansen defines Mimich as "Little Fish." [See his blog from 2014, "Nahuatl Names: The Nahuatl names in the 1544 census of Morelos."] 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, promiscuity, and drunkenness. See The Fate of Earthly Things by Molly H. Bassett (2015). 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). Mimich also has a potential warrior association, as explained in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary. Mimich is a name that has lived on. Multiple examples are found in colonial testaments. See, for example, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, and Constantino Medina Lima, Vidas y Bienes Olvidados (1999).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

gasbar mimich

Gloss Normalization: 

Gaspar 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, José Aguayo-Barragan

Keywords: 

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

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

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 521r, World Digital Library. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=121&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: