Tamuoc (Mdz10v)

Tamuoc (Mdz10v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound place name for a community apparently located in the Huasteca Potosina, Tamuoc (today an archaeological site called Tamoc), consists of a human figure who may be intended to represent an ethnic group of semi-sedentary people, the Tamin, holding a sign for road (otli). The locative suffix -c may have been combined with the o- of otli, to form the locative phrase "on the road."

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Tamuín is another consideration. Given the double "o" sound (that has now disappeared), one might also consider the root of Tamo or Tamoa, given that some sources refer to "Tamoa ichan," the home of God, or the origin site called Tamoanchan. See: Alfredo López Austin, Tamoanchan y Tlalocan (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999). Tam- is fairly close to "place" in Huaxtec.

In the Florentine Codex book 10, it is said that Huaxteca men went about naked until after Spanish colonization. In book 8, it is stated that these people had their "noses pierced like jug handles," they colored their hair yellow, they had arrow marks on their face masks, their teeth were filed to a point, and their heads has a conical shape. [See: the Digital Florentine Codex, https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/8/folio/30r.]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

tamuoc. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Tamuoc, pueblo (in the Huasteca, today)

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

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

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Foreigners/Others
Gender (male)
Names (places)
Race, Ethnicity, Identity
Transportation, Travel, Roads
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inward (from outside in)
Other Cultural Influences: 
Huaxtec
Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

Tam(in), an ethnic group related to the Teochichimeca, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tamin
Tamuín, an ancient Huaxtecan capital, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tamu%C3%ADn
Tamoanchan, legendary origin site, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/Tamoanchan
o(tli), road, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/otli

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 10 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 31 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: 

otli (Mdz10v)