Tlacochtecuhtli (Mdz18r)

Tlacochtecuhtli (Mdz18r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the title "Tlacochtecuhtli" contains a turquoise diadem (called the xiuhhuitzolli) with a red tie for the back of a person's head. The diadem is the hieroglyph for the term (tecuhtli), which refers to a high noble or lord. The glyph also has an acatl (reed) arrow or spear (tlacochtli) coming out of the top of the diadem. Below the diadem is a man's head, the man who held the title. The tlacochtli has the eagle feather and down ball that are reminiscent of the arrow, but these are also the decorations on the calendrical symbol for acatl.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Patrick Hajovsky (On the Lips of Others, 2015, 52) writes, "The crown and arrows phonetically signify the title of Tlacochtecuhtli (Lord of Darts) who was associated with the Tlacochcalco (House of Darts)." Two Nahua men in the Testaments of Culhuacan (Cline and León-Portilla) seem to have held the title of Tlacochtecuhtli--or else this had become part of their names. Other men seemed to have been governing, but these men did not have the privilege of using the noble title of "don," so the tlacochtecutli at the pueblo level was not as high status.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

tlacochtectli. govnador

Gloss Normalization:

tlacochtecuhtli, gobernador

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:

title/office

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Politics, Power, Governance

Social Hierarchy, Commoners, Elites

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

pointed (see also spiky)

tied, bound, or bundled

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

gobernadores, flechas, diademas, coronas, diadems, crowns, nobles, señores, teuctli

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tlacochtecuh(tli), Lord of Darts or Arrows, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacochtecuhtli
tlacoch(tli), a projectile, such as an arrow or spear, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacochtli
tecuh(tli), a lord, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecuhtli
xiuhhuitzol(li), diadem, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xiuhhuitzolli

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 18 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 46 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).