Omacatl (MH817v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph plus notation for the personal name Omacatl (“Two Reed”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows two vertical, slender reeds, each one with two leaves. The two plants are linked at the bottom by a connecting line, an extension of the line that connects the reeds to the tax payer’s mouth.
Stephanie Wood
Two Reed is a name drawn from the 260-day religious divinatory calendar called the tonalpohualli. Many children's names came from this calendar, and the parents believed that the fate of the child was influenced by the day upon which they were born. The use of two reeds/canes can account for the number two in the name. Once upon a time there might have been two small circles to provide the numerical companion to the day sign, acatl. This name could also be Ome Acatl, in two words, but it is not unusual to find the personal name as a fusion as seen here, Omacatl. The glyph for acatl has changed considerably between 1541 (as in the Codex Mendoza) and 1560 (for the Matrícula de Huexotzinco). At this later time, reeds are more representational. Sometimes they are segmented, but they are not segmented in this example.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
números, calendarios, nombres de días, plantas, cañas, fiestas, nombres de hombres
ome, two, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ome
aca(tl), reed or cane, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
Dos Caña, o 2-Caña
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 817v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=709&st=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).
