Tepapalotl (MH751r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tepapalotl ("Stone-Butterfly") is attested here as pertaining to a man. It shows, on the left, a vertical stone on its end, with alternating dark and light angled stripes and curling ends. Coming out from the stone, on the right, is a butterfly in profile, facing the stone. Its wings are together. The wings are fairly plain and left white or natural.
Stephanie Wood
The name raises the question of whether the name refers to a butterfly that is carved in stone. Mexicolore hosts an image of an obsidian butterfly (Itzpapalotl), which was a warrior goddess. Butterflies are prominent in this digital collection, and names that include papalotl also include other potentially religious elements, such as ecatl, quetzalli, and tletl. See some examples below. Even though the gloss starts with Te-, perhaps Tlepapalotl was really the intention.
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
mariposas, piedras, nombres de hombres

te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl-0
papalo(tl), butterfly, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/papalotl
Piedra-Mariposa
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 751r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=580&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).
