Tozpetlacal (MH554v)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tozpetlacal (“Petate Box for Yellow Parrot Feathers,” attested here as a woman’s name) shows a lidded reed hamper (petlacalli) made of woven plant material in the style of a petlatl hand-woven mat. Below the box is a single feather on a diagonal. The feather is probably from a toztli, or yellow-headed parrot.
Stephanie Wood
Women are only rarely represented in the tribute list that makes up the bulk of the glyphs of the Matrícula de Huexotzinco. Married women had to contribute to the tributes owing from their households, but only their husbands typically appear in the lists. Widows, however, had to pay, and therefore they sometimes appear. The variety and patterns of names that were given to girls is difficult to capture.
Stephanie Wood
madanena tozpetlacal
Magdalena Tozpetlacal
Stephanie Wood
1560
mats, esteras, cestos, canastas, woven, tejido, feathers, plumas, parrots, loros, yellow, amarillo, petacas, petlacalli
toz(tli), yellow headed parrot, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/toztli
petlacal(li), reed hamper, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/petlacalli
Loro Amarillo-Cesto
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 554v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=188&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).