Cihuatenan (MH516r)

Cihuatenan (MH516r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph of the personal name Cihuatenan features the head of a woman (cihuatl), shown in profile, looking toward the viewer's right, and, below her head, a horizontal stone (tetl) with curly ends and diagonal stripes. A purplish red appears on the (likely) leather strap that wraps her hair up near her eye. The woman's hair, and the way it is wrapped here is reminiscent of the wrapped hair lock that some male warriors and priests wore (see below). The same purplish red color appears on the right end of the stone. The stone has some gray coloring, too. The -nan part of the name is not represented separately, but could possibly be read into the cihuatl glyph.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The stone plays a phonetic role, providing the syllable "te" in the middle of the name, Cihuatenan. The literal translation of the glyph is "Woman-Someone's Mother." The hairstyle of the woman is indicative of a married Nahua woman who lives in a permanent settlement (not in a semi-sedentary fringe area). The leather strap on her hair is reminiscent of the red leather tie on the man's tzontli, or hair wrapped into a type of ponytail (below).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

galisto çivatenā

Gloss Normalization: 

Calixto Cihuatenan

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
Syntax: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

women, mothers, mujeres, madres, stones, piedras, nombres de hombres

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Mujer-Madre de Alguien

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 516r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=111&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: