Xochihua (MH709v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Xochihua (“Possessor of Flowers”) is attested here as a woman’s name. The glyph shows the head of a woman in profile, looking toward the viewer’s right. This is the woman of the census, but since she is attached to the flower to her right and it is very close to her (touching her forehead), we are including her in the compound as though she is meant as the possessor of flowers. The flower here is gold with three visible petals, two pink anthers, a green stem, and green foliage.
Stephanie Wood
In at least two other glyphs in this collection, this name has the variant of Xochhua (see below). Also below are a few glyphs that similarly end in -hua (to indicate “possessor of”).
In some flowers, such as this one, the anthers are rather pronounced. Here they are even colored red, for further emphasis. The anthers are the flower parts that produce and provide the pollen, which has the reproductive capacity that has been compared in Western cultures to semen.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
flores, hojas, amarillo, verde, nombres de mujeres
xochihua, one who has flowers, a metaphor for a transexual, or one who bewitches women, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xochihua
Poseedora de Flores
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 709v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=497&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).
