Quetzalapitzqui (MH711r)
This colorful painting of the compound glyph for the personal name, Quetzalapitzqui (perhaps “Quetzal Wind-Instrument Player”), shows a horizontal, yellow wind instrument with three finger holes. The top of the instrument has some hatching, which gives it a three-dimensionality. The interior of the horn is white. Coming out from behind the instrument are ten green quetzal feathers, also horizontal. The -qui suffix is suggested by the way the tribute payer’s face is incorporated as someone who is blowing the instrument.
Stephanie Wood
In the gloss, the “a” after the element “quetzal” raises a little question. Pitza means to play a wind instrument, but apitza means to have diarrhea. The guess that this is a chirimía is supported by colonial Nahuatl manuscripts that mention it; it came into Nahuatl as a loan from Spanish. Here’s a photo of one that survives in Mexico open-source. Nahua community bands in Puebla about a century ago might have a huehuetl (drum), a military drum, and one or two chirimías, as captured in this sound recording shared by INAH. For another European-introduced musical instrument, see below.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
plumas, quetzales, instrumentos de viento, chirimía, nombres de hombres
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/QuetzalapitzquiMH711rCmpndPNM.png?itok=KpVFROXH)
quetzal(li), quetzal feathers, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/quetzalli
pitza, to play a wind instrument, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pitza
apitza, to have diarrhea, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apitza
-qui, one who does this thing, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/qui
chirimía, a single-reed wind instrument, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chirim%C3%ADa
posiblemente, Músico con Quetzal-Chirimía
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 711r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=500.
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).
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/QuetzalapitzquiMH711rContext.png)