Tetolini (MH485r)
This simplex glyph for the personal name Tetolini ("He Troubles People") doubles as the noun for something that causes affliction or injury (as Frances Karttunen defines it--see the dictionary link). The glyph emphasizes a mouth and chin, with upper and lower teeth bared. The head is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's right. The fringe on the left side of the person or animal's face has horizontal slash marks, which could suggest fur, or, alternatively, motion.
Stephanie Wood
More than just having a semantic role, the mouth (tentli) could provide a phonetic start to this name. The idea of having a name like "Affliction" or "Something Injurious," may be somewhat surprising, but the referent might not necessarily be the person who bears the name. The glyph for the name does, however, suggests a living being (animal or human) who is making an aggrieved expression, crying out, or threatening to bite someone. The noun comes from tolinia, which can be--in the transitive--to cause injury, but in the reflexive, it can mean to be poor. So, perhaps a tetolini could be someone in poverty. For a range of definitions, see the Gran Diccionario Náhuatl.
Stephanie Wood
pernerdino tetollini
Bernardino Tetolini
Stephanie Wood
1560
Stephanie Wood
cosa mal hecha, cosa que aflije, trabajo, aflicción
tetolini, something troubling, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetolini
tolinia, to afflict or be afflicted, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tolinia
ten(tli), lip, mouth, edge, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tentli
Una Cosa Penosa o Aflictiva
Alonso de Molina
Single-page codex, Archivo General de la Nación, México, Ramo de Tierras, vol. 1871, exp. 1, fol. 28r, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=45&st=image.
The Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), México, holds the original manuscript. This image is published here under a Creative Commons license, asking that you cite the AGN and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.
