xima (Mdz5v)

xima (Mdz5v)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element for the verb to plane or shave wood (xima) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Cuauhximalpan. It shows the trunk of a tree, with a leader and two branches. An ax or hatchet is chipping wood from the trunk. The wood is a terracotta color. The branches have two-tone greenery. The hatchet has a wooden handle, and the blade is tied onto it, probably with a white leather thong or string. The blade is yellow.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

For comparison, see the man chopping a tree down and removing branches in the Florentine Codex, Book I, folio 26 recto. Gordon Whittaker suggests that the perfect tense of xima (xin) is used when combining.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
verb
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Leather, hides
Plants, Flora
Technology (all types), plus Tools
Wood, wooden things
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
green (dark)
green (light)
orange/terracotta
white/neutral
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
tied, bound, or bundled
tripartite
Keywords: 

cutting, planing, chipping, cortando, tallar madera

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

xima, to shave, plane, or cut wood, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xima

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

to plane, cut, or shave

Whittaker's Transliteration: 

XIM(A)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

tallar madera

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 5 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 21 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

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).

See Also: 

cuauhxinqui (Mdz70r)

Cuauhximalpan (Mdz5v)

tepoztli (Mdz41r)