mizquitl (Mdz27r)
This simplex glyph for the mizquitl ("mesquite tree") doubles as the sign for the place name, Mizquiyahualla. It is a spiny plant with red roots, green foliage, and four long, yellow blossoms. The spines, like many represetations of the the flint knife, are red and white.
Stephanie Wood
The plant is bending, which adds the phonetic element and dimension of yahualli (round, around) to the meaning of the place name. This glyph is a compound glyph when it stands for the fuller name, Mizquiahuallan, for it does have two visual parts, the plant itself, and the shape of the plant. The blossoms on this mesquite are somewhat different in shape and coloring from other examples (see below, right).
The flower of the mesquite tree is a long, fluffy, yellow blossom. See an example in WikiMedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prosopis_laevigata_-_flowers.jpg .
Stephanie Wood
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
trees, árboles, curves, curvas, flowers, flores, spines, espinas
mizqui(tl), the mesquite tree or bush, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mizquitl
yahual(li), round or around, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yahualli
mesquite tree or bush
el mesquite
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 27 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 64 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
