Tetzauh (MH828v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tetzauh (perhaps “Omen” or "Something Frightening"), is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows the head of a man in a profile view, facing left. Eight pointed shapes come out of his mouth, looking something like flames. These shapes might represent frightening sounds, given that this personal name derives from the noun tezahuitl, which refers to an omen or something frightening. The man’s hair at the back of his head is somewhat spiky.
Stephanie Wood
Some glyphs for the name Tetzauh include a stone (tetl), which is a phonetic indicator that the name begins with Te-, combined with a droop spindle, phonetic for the -tzauh part of the name (short for tzauhqui, spinner). One Tetzauh glyph seems to be of a human-animal combination, with horns on his head. Some have a swirling shape. One other compound glyph–combining tetzauh with tlatoa–shows a person making sounds that connect to a coiled snake. The concept of an omen is rather abstract, which may contribute to the variety of visual representations.
Stephanie Wood
anto tetzauh
Antonio Tetzauh
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
volutas, flamas, presajios, nombres de hombres
tetzahu(itl), omen or something frightening, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetzahuitl
posiblemente, Presagio, o Cosa Espantosa
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 828v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=731&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).
