Tzihuacxilotl (MH492r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tzihuacxilotl (here, attested as a woman's name) consists of what may be a small agave plant stalk (tzihuactli) and, growing out of it, an ear of maize (xilotl). The ear of corn is only distinguishable from the other parts of the plant because it is somewhat fatter and has corn silk protruding from it.
Stephanie Wood
If these two very different plants, when combined, do not have another meaning, the resulting analysis of the name might be "Agave Stalk-Tender Ear of Maize." Tzihuactli often appears as the trunk of a plant with its branches cut off. See Marc Thouvenot's TLACHIA database for an array of tzihuactli glyphs.
A metaphorical use of tzihuactli is found in the huehuetlatolli (“elders’ wisdom; words of the elders”) compiled under the leadership of Fray Andrés de Olmos. In the published version’s glossary, an editor’s note tells us that “in the original Nahuatl, tzihuactli, teteihuitl, is a diphrasism that refers to two objects [used in] sacrificial rites.”
Note here, too, how the name Ana has an extra line drawn over the gloss, which would be an intrusive overbar, because there is no missing "n." This is not unusual for the name Ana, which is sometimes written in alphabetic Nahuatl as Anan.
Stephanie Wood
anā tzivacxillotl
Ana Tzihuacxilotl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Xitlali Torres
magueyes, maize, corn, maíz, mazorcas, nombres de hombres
tzihuac(tli), small agave plant with a spiny flower stalk, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzihuactli
xilo(tl), ear of maize, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xilotl
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 492r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=63&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).
