Ohuapan (Mdz37r)

The flowering of the plant may suggest that it is green or not fully ready to harvest, despite the appearance of a cob with tassel, which could suggest otherwise. The two hash marks on the corn cob have the look of two eyes, which would anthropomorphize the plant. Corn cobs in mural paintings in Cacaxtla have cobs that are made into human heads. But another interpretation here is that the pairs of parallel short lines that appear on these maize ears are diagnostic marks that say "maize." Note how, on the corn tortillas that appear below, these same parallel lines appears. They are thinner than the "hua" syllable hash marks, and yet ohuatl contains "hua" so perhaps that is the source of the two parallel vertical lines that appear on corncobs and tortillas.

Maybe we should add the "'hua' syllable from ohuatl" to our syntax list of phonetic syllables. Except that with various forms of maize, such as the tortilla and the cobs that have what appear to be faces, the glyph is not always representing a vocabulary word that contains hua. See, for example, glyphs for tlaxcalli, or for the place names Atocpan (Mdz29r), Teocinyocan (Mdz49r), and Chinantlan (Mdz46r). In those examples, there is not phonetic hua, just the semantic "maize" sign.

Speaking of faces, Lois Martin and Chantal Huckert refer to "dimples" on maize kernels that indicate that it is time to pick the cobs and store them. [James Maffie brought this to my attention in a personal communication, 3/4/2025. He cites: Lois Martin, “The Axochiatl Pattern: Aztec Science, Legitimacy, and Cross-Dressing,” in Visual Culture of the Ancient Americas: Contemporary Perspectives, Andrew Finegold and Ellen Hoobler (eds). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017, pp. 197-208.] Maffies adds that the personification of maize cobs, "supports the idea that maize ears (and kernels) are animate, other-than-human persons (an idea for which we already have tons of supporting evidence)."