Tecihuauh (Verg12r)

Tecihuauh (Verg12r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tecihuauh (“Someone's Woman,” attested here as a man’s name) shows the head of a woman in profile facing toward the viewer's left. Below here is a part of a face, meant to provide a phonetic indicator for the "Te-" at the start of the name, derived from lips (tentli). To the left of the woman and the partial face is an upright amaranth plant (huauhtli), which is there to provide the phonetic value of "-huauh" at the end of the name.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Amaranth is a key item of the Nahua diet, still eaten in significant quantities today. It is a gluten-free and nutritious quasi-cereal and protein with various health benefits. Figures representing divine forces were shaped with amaranth mixed with honey. This food had such an important place in Nahua spiritual beliefs and activities that the colonizers were fearful it could impede the acceptance of Christianity, so they tried to outlaw its cultivation.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Source Manuscript:

Vergara, Codex (Verg)

Date of Manuscript:

1539

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

near Tepetlaoztoc, near Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories:

phonetic dimensions

personal name

Syntax:

hua (from huauhtli, amaranth)

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Food, Eating, Cooking

Gender (female)

Gender (male)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Plants, Flora

Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing left

facing right

profile view

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

upward

right to left

Keywords:

amaranto, cereales, comida, plantas, mujeres, labios

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl-0
cihua(tl), woman, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cihuatl
-hua, (possession), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hua

Image Source:

Codex Vergara, folio 12r, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84528032/f31.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights:

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.” We would also appreciate a citation to the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/.

Historical Contextualizing Image: