Xochmitl (MH663r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Xochmitl (“Flowery Arrow,” attested here as a man’s name) shows a frontal view of a flower (xochitl) with five visible petals and an arrow (mitl) piercing it. The flower has a short stem. The arrow goes straight into the flower from above, pointing downward. The top of the arrow has fletching.
Stephanie Wood
This special, flowery arrow was prepared as part of a feast associated with Macuilxochitl/Xochipilli. The arrow would rest upon five tamales. Also a part of the feast were "corn cakes" made into "shields, arrows, swords, and dolls," according to Book 1 of the Florentine Codex (Anderson and Dibble translation). See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
flores, flechas, flowers, arrows
xochmi(tl), a flowery arrow for a special feast, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xochmitl
xoch(itl), flower, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xochitl
mi(tl), arrow, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mitl
Flecha Florida
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 663r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=406&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).