Capoloac (Mdz10r)

Capoloac (Mdz10r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Capoloac (or Capuluac, Capulhuac, etc.) includes a a capulin, or Mexican cherry tree, and some water (atl). The locative suffix (-c) is not shown visually. The water that is shown looks like a cross-section of a canal, the apantli, but here it is just the water that is indicated, which the gloss supports. The water has the classic, wavy black lines showing movement, with one especially thick black line across the middles. The liner of the waterway is yellow. White droplets (perhaps meant to symbolize local jade beads?) and turbinate shells splash off the top of the water. The fruit tree has a leader and two branches. Each branch has fairly standard, two-tone green foliage, but springing out of this foliage are sprigs loaded with red cherry-like fruit. The trunk is terracotta in color.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Berdan and Anawalt note that capulo means "full of cherries," which explains that addition to their translation. Capulin can refer to the tree or to its fruit. The locative suffix (-c) means on or in. The Mexican cherry has the Latin name Prunus salicifolia. Here is a photo of it, showing the red fruit.

There are a number of elements that look like an apantli but that stand simply for atl in this collection. We have put one example below, right.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

capuluac. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Capoloac, pueblo (Capulhuac, today)

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Syntax: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

capol(in), Mexican cherry tree or the fruit of it, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/capolin
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/
-c (locative suffix), at or in, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c

Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"In the Water Full of Cherry Trees" (Karttunen apparently does not take exception to this interpretation by Berdan and Anawalt) [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"In the Water Full of Cherry Trees" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 176)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 10 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 30 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).