Pitzil (MH648r)

Pitzil (MH648r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Pitzil (attested here as a man’s name) shows a small shell with the point upward. It is a turbinate shell much like the ones called cilin (see below for an example), this “cil” may serve as a homophone for the “tzil” in the name.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The pitz- start to the name could come from the verb, pitza, to play a wind instrument (and some shells served as wind instruments). Or, perhaps the “pi-” relates in some way to something small (tepitzin or tepiton), as the shell does appear to be small in the contextualizing image of this glyph.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

juan pitzil

Gloss Normalization: 

Juan Pitzil

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
homophony, rebus
personal name
phonetic dimensions
Syntax: 
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Gender (male)
Music, Song, Dance
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Shells
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling
diminutive (visual)
frontal view
Keywords: 

caracoles, conchas, pequeño, tocar un instrumento de viento, nombres de hombres – Span

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

pitza, to play a wind instrument, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pitza
cil(in), a small shell, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cilin
tepitzin, a little thing, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepitzin
tepiton, something small, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepiton

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 648r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=378&st=image

Image Source, Rights: 

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Cillan (Mdz12r)

cuechtli (Mdz44r)

cuechtli (Mdz67r)