Chamol (MH484v)
This compound glyph for the personal name Chamol has two principal elements. One is a home (chantli), which looks much like a house or other building, drawn with black lines and having largely right angles, except for a small angle at the back. The home is shown in profile, with the T-shaped opening or entry way facing the viewer's right. The other element is an upright scarlet parrot feather (chamolli) hovering over the entryway to the home.
Stephanie Wood
The "chan" element is a phonetic indicator that this red feather is not simply an ihuitl (feather), but a scarlet parrot feather, which begins with "cham." Notice how the name Chamol is apocapated (shortened from chamolli). Red feathers of various kinds (e.g., cuezalin feathers) see the were highly prized, as were the green quetzalli feathers, and yellow parrot feathers (toztli) figure in a great many glyphs. The man who has this name has also been baptized, "Diego," which became his first name, while he kept his Nahua name.
Stephanie Wood
diego chamol
Diego Chamol
Stephanie Wood
1560
Xitlali Torres and Stephanie Wood
houses, homes, casas, hogares, feathers, plumas
chan(tli), a home, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chantli
cal(li), house or building, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calli
chamol(li), scarlet parrot feather, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chamolli
La Pluma del Loro Escarlata
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 484v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=46&st=image.
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).