popoca (Mdz4v)

popoca (Mdz4v)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element has been carved from the compound sign for the personal name, Chimalpopoca. It shows four puffs of smoke, facing different directions, but all rising, each one with an orange inner glow and an outer purple or ash color.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The curling motion of smoke depicted here is reminiscent of the way breath, speech, and sounds curl as they come out of human and animal mouths. But the way these curls of smoke all rise is probably indicative of their internal heat. See our article on this topic.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
noun(s)
verb
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Fire, Tobacco, Incense, Smoke
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

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

popoca, to smoke (as in to emit smoke), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/popoca

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

it smokes (verb)

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 4 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 19 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: 

nahuatl (Mdz51r)

Chimalpopoca (Mdz4v)

Xiuhtlapoca (MH624v)