Nochtepec (Mdz36r)

Nochtepec (Mdz36r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Nochtepec has two principal elements, a prickly pear cactus fruit (nochtli) and a hill or mountain (tepetl). The latter is the standard bell shape in two tones of green and with rocky outcroppings on the sides. It also has the standard, horizontal lines of red and yellow at its base. The cactus fruit (called a tuna in Spanish) has a green bulb-like part and a red and yellow flower above it. The fruit is also covered with spines or thorns, red at their base and white at their tips. The locative suffix (-c) (as given in the gloss) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The "noch" of this place name, the stem for nochtli, can refer in practice to either the prickly pear cactus or its fruit. For instance, in the name for Mexico City, Tenochtitlan, Gordon Whittaker translates it as "By the Rock Cactus." So, this place may be something like "Cactus Hill."

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

nochtepec. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Nochtepec, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

locative (visual not silent)

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Flowers

Food, Eating, Cooking

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

spiny

vertical, upright

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

cacti, cactos, tunas, hills, cerros, mountains, montañas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

noch(tli), prickly pear cactus or cactus fruit, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nochtli
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-tepec (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"On the Hill of the Prickly Pear Cactus" (apparently agreeing with Berdan and Anawalt) [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On the Hill of the Prickly Pear Cactus" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. )

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"En el Cerro del Nopal" o "En el Cerro del Tuna"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza folio 36 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 82 of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

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).