panitl (Mdz37r)

panitl (Mdz37r)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element for panitl or pamitl (flag, banner) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Ohuapan. It is a white rectangular flag (on our right) attached to a white pole (on our left. The height of the flag is about twice its width.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

In the context from which it was taken, the flag was serving to provide the phonetic value for the locative suffix -pan. Because there is no absolutive on the pan, it is conjecture that panitl is the source. We are watching for the use of pantli, tecpantli, panitl, and pamitl. It is a challenge to differentiate between them, for they look very much alike most of the time. For now, when the banner has an association with a number, we are using pantli or tecpantli, watching how they are glossed, and when it is a phonetic locative for a place name, we are often using panitl. Apparently panitl was more common in "Mexico, the Tepanec heartland, and perhaps Colhuacan and Chalco," and pamitl in "northern and eastern flanks of the Valley of Mexico" [see: Jorge Klor de Alva, in The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-century Aztec Mexico (Albany, NY: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, the University at Albany, State University of New York, 1988), 323]. As glyphs come in to this collection from regions where pamitl is more common, we will abide by that orthography.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Colors: 
Shapes and Perspectives: 
Keywords: 

flags, banners, banderas, pantli, pamitl

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 
Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

la bandera

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 37 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 84 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).

See Also: