Yaote (MH498r)

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Yaote ("War Captain") is attested here as a man's name. It shows a war shield in black with white trim. This shield often represents the word yaotl (enemy, combatant, or war). This shield is a circle with fringe at the bottom. Inside the circle, around the perimeter, are four half-circles, evenly spread. In the center is a small circle, completing the quincunx shape that is reminiscent of the arrangement of five down feather balls (probably tlachcayotl) on a shield design (ihuiteteyo) associated with Tenochtitlan. To the left of the shield is an anthropomorphic mouth. The mouth is open, and both upper and lower teeth are visible. But the reference is to the lips (tentli), a phonetic indicator for the "te" part of the name.

This may be a war shield of the ihuiteteyo design, discussed by Frances Berdan and Patricia Anawalt (The Codex Mendoza, 1992, vol. 1, Appendix G). It can come in different colors. Sometimes the symbols on this design are taken for shells. An article by Ian Mursell in Mexicolore and citing the same authors, reminds us that they are down balls, which have associations with death. He also paraphrases John Pohl, saying that the war shield was very personal, it "represented the warrior’s soul, and would generally be burned at the funeral of a dead man." We also learn from The Codex Mendoza: New Insights (2022, 24), that "the tlacuiloque drew and painted a total of eleven ihuiteteyo, one for each one of the rulers of the city."