Mimich (MH648r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Mimich ("Little Fish," attested here as a man's name) shows a horizontal fish facing toward the viewer’s right. This fish (michin) has a horizontal line through its middle that also protrudes from its mouth. The point coming out of the mouth is reminiscent of an arrow (mitl), which may be providing the extra syllable (mi-) for the reduplication at the start of the name.
Stephanie Wood
The possible use of the arrow in this glyph is somewhat unusual, compared to other examples of Mimich, a few of which appear below. The contextualizing image includes a gloss that says this man was a weaver of floor mats (petates in Spanish).
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).
Stephanie Wood
diego mimich petlachiuhq~
Diego Mimich, petlachiuhqui
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
pez, peces, pescado, flechas, Cloud Serpentes, Nube-Serpientes, nombres de fuerzas divinas, nombres de hombres

mich(in), fish, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/michin
mi(tl), arrow, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mitl
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 648r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=378&st=image
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).
