Topalcehual (Verg23r)

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph is a black-line drawing of the personal name Topalcehual (perhaps “Our Black Shadow”). It is a man’s name, but it includes a female dimension. The top element is a bird (tototl), which seems to provide the first syllable (“To-,” Our). Below that is an upside-down black crescent, possibly obsidian, which seemingly has the reading of “-pal-” (from palli, black). The head of a woman (cihuatl) is the final element. The gloss suggests “-cenhual,” but early studies of the Codex Vergara ignored the overbar that would insert the “n,” resulting in cehual- (from cehualli, shadow). So, cihuatl may be employed here as a near homophone for cehualli.