Nencihuatl (MH633r)

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Nencihuatl (perhaps "Useless Woman") is attested here as a woman's name. It is a profile view of a woman looking toward the viewer's right. She wears the classic hairstyle (neaxtlahualli) that married sedentary women (cihuatl) wore (with the hair twisted up into two points above their foreheads). But this shape on the head also echoes the rectangular points recalling the doll or deity image (nenetl) that is so common in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, providing the "nen-" syllable. This nen- syllable seems to be a negative in most cases. Perhaps here it means "Idle Woman" or "Useless Woman." An exception to this negative sense of nen- is Chalchiuhnene (with the reduplication); it is a name that seems to refer to precious female genitals (personal communication from Gordon Whittaker, April 2023).