Tletzanen (Verg47r)

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph is a black-line drawing of the personal name Tletzanen (or possibly Tletzana?), attested here as a man’s name. In their study of the Codex Vergara, Williams and Hicks read the gloss as Tletzanē, which agrees with the reading here. What it means, however, is unsettled. The compound apparently begins with flames of fire (tletl). Whether that is phonetic or semantic (such as an indication of a fire red color) is unclear. Above the flames is what appears to be a butterfly, but it must be a bird, such as the tzanatl, which can be a blackbird, starling, or a grackle. Again, it is unclear whether this is meant as a phonetic syllable (such as -tzan-) or a semantic reference to one of those birds–perhaps a fiery red bird? Finally, the female figurine or doll (nenetl) presumably provides the phonetic syllable (-nen) at the end of the name, but its translation in this context remains elusive. The figurine, shown in a frontal view, wears a huipilli and a long skirt.