Tzihuacxilotl (MH639r)

Tzihuacxilotl (MH639r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tzihuacxilotl consists of what may be a small agave plant (tzihuactli) and, growing out of it, an ear of maize (xilotl).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

If rhese 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 tree (cuahuitl), but here it looks like a plant. See Marc Thouvenot's TLACHIA database for an array of tzihuactli glyphs.

Many glyphs for tzihuactli show what seems to be the agave stalk. It has the appearance of a tree (cuahuitl) having had branches cut off haphazardly. Perhaps this tree or wood is there to underwrite the phonetic "hua" syllable.

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.”

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories:

personal name

phonetic dimensions

Syntax:

hua or cua (from cuahuitl)

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Food, Eating, Cooking

Gender (male)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Plants, Flora

Religion (Indigenous)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

vertical, upright

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

inherent/internal/merged

Keywords:

magueyes, maize, corn, maíz, mazorcas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tzihuac(tli), tzihuac(tli), a small agave with a spiny flower stalk, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzihuactli
xilo(tl), ear of maize, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xilotl

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 639r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=360&st=image.

Image Source, Rights:

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: