Teteuhtepec (Mdz7v)

Teteuhtepec (Mdz7v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Teteuhtepec has two prominent visual features. One is the rectangular ritual paper (tetehuitl), with a design of drops of rubber. It has a horizontal tie band across the top, three pairs of slits across the bottom, and a decoration of six shapes that are reminiscent of modern asterisks (the rubber splatters?). The other main visual feature is a hill or mountain (tepetl) behind the quemitl, providing the locative suffix (-tepec), meaning on the hill or mountain. This hill is a standard two-tone green bell shape with horizontal red and yellow stripes at the base. Curly rocky outcroppings are shown on the two sides of the mountain, reminiscent of the edges of rocks (tetl), reinforcing or complementing the phonetic start to -tepec. The locative suffix (-c) (as given in the gloss) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Daniele Dehouve refers to the black star shapes as designs made of drops of liquid rubber on a similar piece of paper in the Codex Magliabechiano (see her 2020 essay about Chalchiuhtlicue in Ancient Mesoamerica). She says that the design in rubber represents the visual of a raindrop hitting the ground (16). Katarzyna Mikulska reproduces an array of tetehuitl examples from the Codex Tudela and Magliabechiano in her essay in Los Códices Mesoamericanos, coord. Miguel Ángel Ruz Barrio and Juan José Batalla Rosado (2018), 100. Marc Thouvenot, in his study of sixteenth-century Nahua writing (Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 41, 2010, p. 171) mentions that this chest ornament may be a paper tlaquechpanyotl, which was worn by those who took enslaved people to be sacrificed. The quemitl of another glyph has a similar shape to this ritual paper. See below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

teteuhtepec / pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Teteuhtepec, pueblo

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:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

locative (visual not silent)

noun(s)

reduplication (in gloss/text)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Paper

Religion (Indigenous)

Rubber

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

rectangular

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

front to back

Keywords:

mountains, hills, vestimenta ritual, papeles, papers, montaña, cerro, hule, rubber

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tetehui(tl), ritual paper, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetehuitl
teo(tl), divine force(s), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/teotl
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
quemi(tl), ritual garment, often bib-like,
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 7 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 25, 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).