Tlatzilini (MH665v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tlatzilini (“Bells Ring”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph is a large, European-type of bell, like the kind made for churches. It has a loop at the top for hanging and clapper coming out through the lower opening. The bell has horizontal hatching across half of its body, giving it three-dimensionality, which suggests European artistic influence. A hand touches the clapper, which gives the effect of the ringing of the bell (tlatzilini) being in progress.
Stephanie Wood
This type of European bell was a point of pride for some towns to acquire for their new temples, the Christian churches. The autonomous-era type of bells (coyolli), as shown on folio 44 recto of the Codex Mendoza (see below) has little sound scrolls coming out of the bottom. The coyolli (jingle bells) and oyohualli (also shown below) were usually small copper or gold bells. The loop at the top of this bell does coincide with the loop of some of the coyolli bells, which could hang from jewelry or from a leather thong around ankles, for instance, when danced. Juan José Batalla Rosado (2018, 96) includes the various glyphs related to the verbs tzilini and tzizlinia in his study of visual loans, given that the iconography of these bells has been greatly influenced by exposure to European bells. He also points to the new occupation of bell ringer and its seeming neologisms tlatzilini or tlatziliniani (2018, 97).
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
bells, campanas, sonar, suenan, campanillas, pinjantes, metales
tlatizilini, to ring (as in a bell), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzilini
Suena la Campana
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 665v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=411&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).
