xicalli (Mdz46r)
This element for xicalli (vessel, cup, or bowl) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Xicaltepec. The interior is painted blue. There are two parallel vertical lines inside the container, which we have left in this atomized view. There is a thin horizontal line running parallel to the top of the blue color and running adjacent to it, just inside. In the original compound, this gourd vessel has two vertical, thick, black lines in the middle. These should be an indicator for the syllable "hua," which would have made more sense for the similar place name, Xicalhuacan. But the lines to not relate to the gourd vessels, which is why they do not appear here.
Stephanie Wood
Gourd vessels could be painted various colors, such as we see in the Codex Mendoza on folios 23 verso and 68 recto. Our Online Nahuatl Dictionary includes an example of a blue xicalli, mentioned in the Florentine Codex. Other examples include a green stone xicalli and one made from red straw. The xicalli was used to contain and measure corn kernels; Chimalpahin mentions a gourdful of maize costing 1/2 real. Other examples from the dictionary include using a xicalli for hand washing. Given that it can be a container for water, at least at times, this could be another reason why it is painted turquoise. Also, maize is precious to life. The turquoise color may have been chosen intentionally to underline phonetically the xi- value of xicalli, given that xi- and xiuh- are stems for xihuitl, turquoise.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
water, containers, gourds, cups, bowls, vessels, jícaras, tazón, tazones
xical(li), vessel, container, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xicalli
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
container
la jícara
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 46 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 102 of 188.
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).
