Xolochiuhyan (Mdz13r)

Xolochiuhyan (Mdz13r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph of the place name Xolochiuhyan shows an old man with wispy gray hair and a very wrinkled face. He is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's left. His mouth is slightly open, but teeth are not apparent. He is wearing a white shirt with vertical stripes. The -yan (locative suffix) is not presented visually.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

We are treating this as attestation of a simplex glyph, for there is another one from the Codex Mendoza in this database already, from folio 38 recto. The place name provides a graphic syllepsis in that one can read simply xolo (page, servant, or enslaved person), or xolochtic (wrinkled), and/or the combining stem of the verb chihua ("chiuh"). The root xolo can also refer to the ancestral leader/deity Xolotl, who is often shown with a wrinkled face, too.

The locative suffix -yan is one that attaches to verbs and indicates customary action. [Frances Karttunen, "Critique of glyph catalogue in Berdan and Anawalt edition of Codex Mendoza," unpublished manuscript.] So, perhaps this is a place where people get wrinkled Berdan and Anawalt wondered whether perhaps slaves were made in this place.

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

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
locative (not visual)
noun(s)
verb
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Aging (People, Animals, Things)
Appearance
Gender (male)
Labor Issues
Mouth/Beak Open
Names (places)
Slavery
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing left
profile view
wrinkles
Keywords: 

aging, wrinkles, old man, Xolotl, envejecimiento, arrugado, viejo

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

xolo, page, servant, or slave, https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/content/xolo
xoloch(tic), wrinkled, https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/content/xolochtic
-yan (locative suffix), https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/content/yan

Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"Place Where People Get Wrinkled" [Frances Karttunen, "Critique of glyph catalogue in Berdan and Anawalt edition of Codex Mendoza," unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"Place where Attendants or Slaves are Made" (Berdan and Anawalt)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 13 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 36 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: 

xolo (Mdz13r)