Tetzauh (MH592r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tetzauh (“Omen,” attested here as a man’s name) consists of a spiraling line.
Stephanie Wood
This spiral may be a phonetic indicator for tzauhqui, spinner, thinking of the line a spinning top or a spindle will make at its base. At least two other glyphs for Tetzauh in this collection show spindles. However, swirling or spiraling shapes are extremely prevalent in Nahua hieroglyphic writing. Swirls such as those seen in water (see Atonal, below) or the wind may have been associated with premonitions and/or access points for entering a separate reality.
Another possible reading to this glyph for the name Tetzauh is "adulterer." Charles Dibble refers to the Tetzauhcihuatl ("Glifos fonéticos," Estudios de Cultural Náhuatl 4 (1963), 58) as referring to an adulteress. So, this could be the male adulterer.
Stephanie Wood
gozalo tetzauh
Gonzalo Tetzauh
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
swirling, remolino, omens, profecía, prophesy, agueros, auguries, prognostication, foretelling
tetzahui(tl), omen, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetzahuitl
tzauhqui, a spinner, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzauhqui
tzahualiz(tli), the act of spinning (such as yarn or thread), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzahualiztli
El Aguero
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 592r, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=263&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).
