Oztomecatl (MH882v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Oztomecatl (“Vanguard Merchant” or a “Person from Oztoman”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a man in profile, facing right. His legs do not end in feet. His left arm holds a staff or walking stick. He right arm reaches back to hold onto his pack. He has a mesh (net?) bag covering most of his back and reaching up almost to his head. The pack is apparently full of merchandise that he would be selling as a traveling merchant who was part of the vanguard for expanding the empire (oztomecatl).
Stephanie Wood
Perhaps by the time of this manuscript, the oztomecatl was simply a long-distant merchant. If not a merchant, this could be a person from Oztoman, but presumably the Oztoman merchants became famous for their role in imperial expansion, and the ethnic designation became entwined with the commercial one. Lockhart (The Nahuas, 1992, 191) links his discussions of the oztomeca with the pochteca, suggesting we watch for distinctions about the distances traveled and the quality of the goods marketed.
Stephanie Wood
toribio oztomecatl
Toribio Oztomecatl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
comerciantes, larga distancia, expansión, imperialismo, nombres de hombres

oztomecatl, people from Oztoman, or vanguard merchants, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/oztomecatl
Comerciante de la Vanguardia, o Persona de Oztoman
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 882v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=837&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).
