Cuauhtecolotl (MH491v)
The black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Cuauhtecolotl (here, attested as male) features the head of an eagle {cuauhtli)] in profile looking toward the viewer's right. The feathers on its head are textured, and a few spiky feathers come off the top and the back of its head. Its visible eye is open, and its beak is open. Two squared-off protrusions also come off the top of the eagle's head. These are somewhat reminiscent of the ears of an owl (tecolotl). See the tecolotl from the Codex Mendoza, below.
Stephanie Wood
See also the other Cuauhtecolotl from the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, below. Cuauhtecolotl, which combines two bird names, Eagle-Owl, was a name used by some prominent men. There was, for example, a ruler in Quiahuiztlan, Tlaxcala, with the name don Baltazar Cuauhtecolotl. He is mentioned by Diego Muñoz Camargo (ed. Germán Vázquez, 1986, 130). A person named Cuauhtecolotl also appears in a poem from Chalco (Miguel León Portilla, Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World, 1992, 253). Another person named Cuauhtecolotl was a steward of Ahuatepec (Tetzcoco region) (Pedro Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico, 2012, 147). John Bierhorst wondered whether a cuauhtecolotl was a fallen warrior (see his A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos, 1985, 295).
Stephanie Wood
Juā guauhtecollotl
Juan Cuauhtecolotl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Stephanie Wood
eagles, águilas, owls, tecolotes, feathers, plumas
cuauh(tli), eagle, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuauhtli
tecolo(tl), owl, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecolotl
Águila-Tecolote, o Águila-Buho
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=45&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).
