Mixcoatl (MH638r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Mixcoatl ("Cloud Serpent," attested here as a man's name) has two elements, a small cluster of what are probably meant to be clouds (mixtli) at the top and a serpent (coatl) shown in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. The one visible eye is open, and the forked (bifurcated) tongue is protruding. A fang also protrudes, and the tail has a segmented rattler. The snake's body has one loop in the middle, in a semi-coil. The clouds have some vertical hash marks that seem to create shading, or three-dimensionality, a possibly European influence.
Stephanie Wood
Cloud Serpent was a popular name for Nahua men, especially notable in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco. According to Sahagún, it was a divine force among the Chichimecs, and carried a powerful significance for the Nahuas. Some scholars have seen it as a divinity associated with hunting, others as part of a Tlaloc complex (of clouds, rain, lightning, etc.), and others as a symbol for a whirlwind (remolino, in Spanish).
Stephanie Wood
miscouatl
Mixcoatl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
clouds, nubes, serpents, serpientes, snakes, deities, deidades, Chichimecas, cohuatl
Mixcoatl, a deity, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mixcoatl
mix(tli), cloud(s), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mixtli
coa(tl), serpent/snake, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coatl
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 638r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=358st=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).
