Xelhuan (MH828r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Xelhuan (also spelled Xelhua) is attested here as a man’s name. This tribute payer may be named for a famous Nonoalca-Chichimeca figure of Nahua origin stories. The glyph shows the head of a man in profile, looking toward the viewer’s right. He apparently wears a headdress of what appear to be six feathers, perhaps quetzal feathers.
Stephanie Wood
A feathered headdress would align with memories of the Chichimeca people that were held by sedentary central Mexicans. Xelhua or Xelhuan was the name of a figure in Nahua origin stories who has been interpreted as a mythical giant, prince, or "deity," the son of Ilancueitl, and someone active in the Tehuacan Valley. [See Emily Umberger, "Aztec Presence and Material Remains in the Outer Provinces," in Aztec Imperial Strategies, ed. Frances Berdan (1996, 170).] He may have climbed Mount Tlaloc to escape a flood, and some attribute him with organizing the construction of the huge pyramid in Cholula. Our Online Nahuatl Dictionary also reports that Xelhuan was the name of: "a Nonoalca Chichimeca who settled in Tula with three other Nonoalcas and four Tolteca Chichimecas, according to the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca or Anales de Cuauhtinchan."
Stephanie Wood
dio xelva
Diego Xelhuan
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
plumas, tocados, nombres de hombres, nombres famosos, etnicidades
(nombre de un Chichimeca famoso)
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 828r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=730&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).
