Toxicco (Mdz12r)
This simplex glyph representing the place name, Toxicco, shows a representation of a toxic or xictli (umbilical cord). The locative suffix (-co) is not presented visually. The cord appears to have been made into a necklace (cozcatl), but that does not enter into the name. The cord is white, drawn with black lines. It forms something of a heart shape, coming to a point at the bottom and having a tie at the top. The ends of the tie are fringed. There may be beads on the cord and little ties where the beads stop on both sides of the necklace. Another xictli that appears in the Codex Mendoza, which shows it coming out of a human abdomen, appears below, right. We are also counting this simplex glyph as representative of toxic (not the word "toxic" in English), another way of saying umbilical cord.
Stephanie Wood
Interestingly, the umbilical appears to have been made into a necklace. Male warriors carried the umbilical cords of boys into battle and left them on the battlefield; perhaps they wore them as necklaces into battle. Cords of girls were buried under the hearth in the home. To compare this necklace to others that appear in glyphs, see Cincozcac and cozcatl, below, on the right. In the huehuetlahtolli, elder speech, we see metaphorical references to children as bracelets and necklaces and their souls as chalchihuitl (jade, greenstones). Although this glyph of the umbilical necklace is black and white, there could be jade beads strung on the umbilical cord. [Thanks to Robert Haskett for the observation about the huehuetlahtolli, and see James Lockhart, The Nahuas (1992), p. 406, for a relevant passage from that oral tradition.]
Stephanie Wood
toxico. puo
Toxicco, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
necklaces, umbilical cords, toxico, collares, ombligos
toxic, umbilical cord, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/toxic
xic(tli), umbilical cord, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
Codex Mendoza, folio 12 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 34 of 188.
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).
