Texolohua (MH553r)

The name Texolohua was held by a Mexica noble, so perhaps it is borne here in memory of that famous person. [See: Jesús Monjarás-Ruiz, La nobleza mexica (1980), 84.] In trying to understand what the name means, one wonders whether a stone carving of Xolotl, the divine force of lightning and death, is intended or just a dog, the xoloitzcuintli. A stone effigy of a divine force makes more sense than a stone dog. The itzcuintli glyphs from this same manuscript do tend to have turned-up noses. The Xolotl glyphs from the Codex Mendoza sometimes have one vertical line of paint on the face. These lines resemble the face paint or tattooing of the Otomí glyph, although those lines are red.

Images of Ehecatl and Xolotl can have face paint, perhaps some indication of their divinity. Alternatively, the face paint or tattooing could represent the "hua" possessor syllable here, recalling the term xahua (to paint oneself), which has been suggested by Julio Alfonso Pérez Luna in Lenguas en el México novohispano y decimonónico (2011), citing Alfonso Lacadena's analysis of various "hua" syllables.