Tepechichilco (TC RG)

Tepechichilco was one of the subject communities of Tetl Iztacan, a cabecera (head town) in the vicinity of the better known Cempohuallan (Zempoala). The Spanish text of its Relación Geográfica states that its place name means “cerro bermejo” (“red hill/mountain;” folio 1 recto). It is possible that the red chile pepper of the glyph indicates the reduplication of chil that is found in the Nahuatl word for red, chichiltic; in other words, it is not only a logogram for a chile pepper, but also a red one. On the map, the glyph is paired with the frontal view of a black-outlined church with a large arched doorway, crenelations on its upper parts, and a squat square tower on its roof. It serves as a semantic indicator for an inhabited place, something characteristic of the RG map of Cempohuallan, as well. A black outlined road studded with human footprints issues from the doorway of the church and bears left at an angle, passing beautiful renditions of maguey plants, a nopal cactus, and a tree, all with exposed roots (see the historical contextualizing image). This road eventually connects Tepechichilco with the traza of Tetl Iztacan. Tepechichilco still exists, but is now a very small community which had only 39 inhabitants in 2020. For more information, see Mundy, Barbara E., “Mapping Babel: A Sixteenth-Century Indigenous Map from Mexico,” The Appendix, 1:4 (October 2013), and Mundy (1996).