Xinca (MH674r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name or ethnicity, Xinca (perhaps an ethnic designation relating to a group of people in Guatemala) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows the head of a man in profile, facing toward the viewer’s right. His hair is unusual and he may have an earring, details which could support a different ethnicity. Below him are what appear to be two black animal hides in a bird’s eye view with small markings (perhaps debris) around them.
Stephanie Wood
esides the possibly Guatemalan link, there is a legend in Nicaragua that refers to “Xincatl y Nahoa.” Beyond that, many vocabulary words that contain the element -xincayotl refer to outer layers, such as maize husks (tlaolxincayotl), fish scales (mixincayotl), or snake hide (coaxincayotl). Hence, the name Xinca may also refer to outer layers of some kind that can be shaved off (xima, a verb whose combining stem is xin-). This could explain the presence of hides in the glyph. The debris around the skins in this glyph could come from tlaolxincayotl, which not only refers to the husks but also the debris from maize.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
pieles, cueros, etnicidades, nombres de hombres
xima, to shave or cut, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xima
yo(tl), having the nature of, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yotl
tlaolxincayo(tl), corn husks, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlaolxincayotl
mixincayo(tl), fish scales, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mixincayotl
coaxincayo(tl), snake skin, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coaxincayotl
posiblemente una etnicidad
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 674r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=428&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).
