Chicomacatl (MH483r)

Chicomacatl (MH483r)
Simplex Glyph
Notation

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph-plus-notation represents a personal name here, attested as a man's name. The notation is a series of unpainted circles running vertically to the right of the glyph for reed (acatl). Sometimes the expression of seven ones will be grouped into five and two. Here, the first five are slightly larger than the bottom two, but there is not a noticeable separation into two groupings of ones. The reed is also vertical and has two leaves, on on each side of the stalk, which has three horizontal rings, at the top, bottom, and middle. The reed has no colorant here.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

This is a calendrical name, drawn from the tonalpohuall, 260-day divinatory calendar, which played an important role in the Nahuas' religious views of the cosmos. Acatl was a propitious date: "They said the good days were Reed, Monkey, Crocodile, Eagle, House" (central Mexico, sixteenth century). See: Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 129.

Alternatively, the name chicomacatl could relate to a medicinal herb, and the calendrical notation for Chicome Acatl was painted here to approximate the name of the herb.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

chicomacatl

Gloss Normalization: 

Chicomacatl

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
calendrics
day name
year name
numbers
personal name
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Numbers, Math
Plants, Flora
Religion (Indigenous)
Time, Calendar, Frequency
Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
right to left
Keywords: 

Chicome Acatl, Seven Reed, reeds, plants, numbers, plantas, números, cañas, Chicomaca, nombres de hombres

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

Chicomacatl, a name, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chicomacatl-0
chicomacatl, a medicinal herb, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chicomacatl
chicome, seven, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chicome
aca(tl), reed, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Siete Caña (7-Caña), o una hierba medicinal(?)

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483r, World Digital Library. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=45&st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).

See Also: 

Chicomaca (MH832r)