Temictli (MH794r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Temic ("Dream," "Cocoon," or a famous name) shows a frontal view of a cocoon. It has short horizontal lines across its body on either side of a central vertical line. It has a small head with dots representing two eyes and a mouth. It also has ears that are reminiscent of an owl’s ears. It appears shrouded, similar to a corpse.
Stephanie Wood
Other glyphs in this collection show cocoons or caterpillars for the name Temic or Temictli. Cocoons resemble shrouded corpses, which could be a phonetic indication for micqui (deceased person), and provide the "mic-" element in this name. Perhaps the cocoons were meant to disguise the meaning of "dream." Bartolomé de Alva's confessionary shows that Nahuas were interrogated about their belief in dreams. Another consideration is that the cocoon was a dream of a butterfly to come, and butterflies figure prominently in Nahua religious beliefs, as explained in an article by Ian Mursell in Mexicolore.
Temictli was also a famous name, given to the nephew of Moctezuma I. Here it is also attested as a man's name.
Stephanie Wood
dio temictli
Diego Temictli
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
cocoons, capullos, dreams, sueños, death, muerte, morir, shrouds, sleep, dormir, caterpillars, butterfly, mariposas, nombres de hombres
temic(tli), dream or cocoon, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/temictli
posiblemente, Sueño o Capullo
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 794r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=662&st=image.
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).
