Nenca (MH632v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Nenca is attested here as a woman's name. Nenca ("Unemployed," or "Inactive"), refers to being idle or lazy. It shows a doll or an ixiptlatl, an image of a divine force, which were both apparently called (nenetl), along with women's genitals (according to Molina, but unattested in alphabetic Nahuatl manuscripts). This one has its arms across its abdomen and it wears a skirt. The glyph provides the phonetic start (Nen-) to the name. The -ca is not shown visually.
Stephanie Wood
Diagnostic traits for such anthropomorphic "nen" figures include two rectangular protrusions at the top of the head. They are also typically shown in a frontal view.
Stephanie Wood
franca
nēca
Francisca Nenca
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
widows, viudas, nombres de mujeres, muñecas, ixiptla, deidades, religión, imágenes
nenca, to be idle, without profit, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nenca
Desempleada, o Inactiva
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 632r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=347st=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).