Mimich (MH483v)

Mimich (MH483v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph for the personal name Mimich ("Fish," attested here as a man's name) shows a horizontal fish facing toward the viewer's right. It body is covered with scales and it has four fins and a tail.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The gloss includes a reduplication of the first syllable, but this does not appear to have a visual complement. There is a Mimich, for which this man may have been named, who was a Cloud Serpent paired with Xiuhnel and associated with hunting. Magnus Pharao Hansen defines Mimich as "Little Fish." [See his blog from 2014, "Nahuatl Names: The Nahuatl names in the 1544 census of Morelos."]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

mimich

Gloss Normalization: 

Mimich

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: 
personal name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
reduplication (in gloss/text)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Animals, incl. Birds, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, etc.
Food, Eating, Cooking
Gender (male)
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Religion (Indigenous)
Weather, Climate
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Xitlali Torres and Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
dotted, granular, textured
facing right
horizontal
Keywords: 

fish, peces, pescado, hunting, cazar, Serpientes de las Nubes, Cloud Serpents

Museum & Rare Book Comparisons: 
Museum/Rare Book Notes: 

michin. This fish is one of a series of small images of aquatic life now on display in the Museo del Templo Mayor. It may represent a white fish (iztac michin), "whose flesh was a delicacy [among the Mexica] identified as that of the Atherindae...family." Alternatively, it could be an image of a member "of the Goodeidae...family, which were more abundant species with wider distribution in the Basin of Mexico." Photograph by Robert Haskett, Museo del Templo Mayor, 15 February 2023.

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

michin, fish, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/michin.

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=46&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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Mimich (MH490r)

Mimich (MH486v)