xonecuilli (Mdz16v)

xonecuilli (Mdz16v)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This element for a special twisted stick (xonecuili) that was an offering given to deities doubles as the place name for Yolloxonecuillan. We could have carved away the heart, but we were unsure whether a heart design was essential to the design of the stick. The red stick here presents itself at an angle. Each of the two ends curl in opposite directions. The heart is yellow in a wide horizontal stripe across the middle, but it is red at the top and the bottom. The top is ragged or curling, something akin to a stone or the roots of a tree.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

See our Online Nahuatl Dictionary for further information about this xonecuilli, which might have been made from a type of cactus. The xonecuilli also apparently referenced a constellation, citlalxonecuilli.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

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:

cuil (tracking)

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Celestial Phenomena

Names (places)

Religion (Indigenous)

Colors:

red

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

diagonal or angled

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

twisted or entwined

Keywords:

objects, objetos, rituales, rituals, corazones, hearts

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

xonecuil(li), a stick or staff with notches that was "offered to the idols" (see Molina); a type of cactus (see Karttunen); or, twisted (see Mikulska), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xonecuilli

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 16 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 43 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).