Nauhecatl (Verg41r)

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph is a black-line drawing of the personal name Nauhecatl (“Four-Wind”), which is attested here as a man’s name. It is a name that comes from the religious divinatory 260-day calendar, the tonalpohualli. It combines a day name (Ehecatl, referring to the divine force of the wind) with a number from 1 to 13, which is four (nahui) in this case. The stem for nahui is the first part of this name, Nauh-, which is shown visually with four short, vertical lines, a notation. The Ehecatl part of the name is typically shortened to -ecatl, without the reduplication at the beginning. A black bean (etl) with a white spot provides the phonetic syllable that indicates an E- is the start to this day sign. This is reinforced with swirling dots (perhaps dust) in swirling shapes, which helps to visualize the movement of the wind (ehecatl).