Otompa (Mdz3v)
This compound glyph for the place name Otompa includes two prominent visual elements. One is the head of a man who is apparently of the Otomí ethnicity. This man's head, in profile and looking to the viewer's left, has long hair, a light terracotta-colored face, red horizontal and vertical lines intersecting on his face, and a turquoise ear plug. The head sits atop a hill or mountain (tepetl), which serves as a silent stand-in for the locative suffix (-pan), in or on.
Stephanie Wood
The details of the appearance of the person likely has an association with his culture. And the pueblo must have an association with such a figure as this person, too. Our Online Nahuatl Dictionary includes evidence that such a person could have held a military rank. Also, something is said about having a unique hairstyle.
In this digital collection, face paint or tattooing has ethnic associations, involving Chichimecs, the Otomí, the Tlaxcalteca, and those who were “different” (e.g. the Tlamaca). Divine forces, such as Ecatl (or Ehecatl) and Xolotl, also have some face paint or tattoos.
Stephanie Wood
otunpa__puo
Otompa, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
otomi(tl), a member of the group of people who speak Otomi, or, perhaps a military officer https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/otomitl
-pan (locative suffix), in, on, or at, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan
"At the Otomí Place," or "Where the Otomí Live"
"On the Otomí" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 197)
Codex Mendoza, folio 3 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 17 of 188.
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).
