Tlacuilol (MH505r)

Tlacuilol (MH505r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name or occupation, Tlacuilol (short for tlacuilolli, "A Piece of Writing, Painting, or Design," attested here as a male name), shows a hand holding a stylus used for writing. A left hand that is fisted, facing toward the viewer's right, and it is gripping the stylus in the middle. The stylus is at an angle, and the wider part is at the lower end. Given the gloss, this glyph could be short for tlacuilolli (a piece of writing, a painting), or it may have intended tlacuilo, writer/painter (just inadvertently adding a final l).

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Marc Thouvenot identifies the verb icuiloa (or ihcuiloa, with the glottal stop), which means to paint, write, or print, as having a root of -cuil-. He notes how it also appears in tlacuiloliztli (writing), tlacuilo (writer), and cuicuiltic (mottled). He goes on to show various uses of icuiloa that take it beyond the simple definitions just given, resulting in something like the action of creating a design (e.g., on leather, ceramics, sculpture, or in textiles). It can also be something like the action of decorating (e.g., to put a flower on a cup of atole). He associates icuiloa and tlacuilolli with "cultural artifacts," such as arts and crafts or examples of writing and painting, but cuicuiltic with effects created by "nature." This short summary barely does his article justice; it is worth reading the entire piece. How Thouvenot's study might connect with the concept of bent or curved mentioned by Prem (1974: 555, 682) raises an interesting question. Perhaps the bent or curved lines of writing, painting, carving, embroidery, and so on, fall with in the realm of expressions of -cuil-. See
Marc Thouvenot, "Imágenes y escritura entre los nahuas del inicio del XVI," Estudios de Cultural Náhuatl 41 (2010).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

Juan
tlacuilol

Gloss Normalization: 

Juan Tlacuilol

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Keywords: 

writing, escritura, escribano, escribiendo, el estilo

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

tlacuilol(li), a piece of writing, a painting, or a design, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacuilolli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

La Escritura, La Carta (o, El Escribano)

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 505r, World Digital Library, hhttps://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=89&st=image

Image Source, Rights: 

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: