Xipich (MH518v)

Xipich (MH518v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph for the personal name Xipich (here, attested as a man's name) has yet to be deciphered. The object shown is egg-shaped with a point at the top. It is striped horizontally red and white (giving the impression of an implicit spiral). (The red is somewhat pink, somewhat purple, not a true red.) It resembles a toy, perhaps a spinning top.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

One word for a spinning top is coxi, which has the "xi" element that is at the start of the word glossed with this glyph, but the connection is tenuous. The element "xip," however, is found in words relating to "peeling, flaying, shaving" according to Frances Karttunen (see the Online Nahuatl Dictionary). One of these words is xipetztic, an adjective describing the end result of shaving: smooth, bald, bare, naked. Going from "Xipich" to "Xipetz" is not a huge orthographic stretch, but a shared meaning seems doubtful.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

Juao xipich

Gloss Normalization: 

Juan Xipich

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
personal name
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Gender (male)
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Colors: 
black
purple
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
striped
spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling
vertical, upright
frontal view
oval (see also leaf shaped)
Keywords: 

spinning top, nombres de hombres

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

xip-, peeling, flaying, shaving, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xip
coxi, a spinning top, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coxi
xipetztic, smooth, naked, bald, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xipetztic

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 518v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=116&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: