Mexi (MH500v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Mexi (or Mexih, with the glottal stop) is attested here as a man’s name or ethnic affiliation. It shows a maguey plant (metl), which serves as a phonetic indicator that the name starts with "Me-". The name is meant to elicit Mexi, another name for Huitzilopochtli, which became the root of the ethnic name for the people who carried him in the migration that resulted in the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. (This is attested in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary, in the entry for Mexi.) The maguey has five spiky and spiny branches (or pencas, in Spanish). No recognizable visual element provides the phonetic -xih of the name.
Stephanie Wood
Another ethnicity that refers to someone from the area of the lakes upon which Mexico Tenochtitlan was founded is "Anahuacatl," although that could also refer to people who lived near the oceans, on the coast. While the agave is a phonetic indicator for Me-, it might also have a semantic contribution, given that the land surrounding the lakes has many agaves, and these plants have considerable cultural significance. It is worth noting that "Mexicatl" is the ethnic term for a person of the city of Mexico. "Mexica" is the plural of Mexicatl, referring to the people of Mexico City. Many observers today broaden "Mexica" to refer to all Nahuas, but that was not its original meaning. It was more specific to the city.
Stephanie Wood
Juan
mexi
Juan Mexih
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
ethnicity, ethnicities, etnicidades, capitalinos, ciudad de México, Mexica, Mexi, Mexih, magueyes
me(tl), maguey agave plant, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/metl
Mexi (or Mexih), a person affiliated with Mexico City, and another name for Huitzilopochtli, taken as an ethnic name by the migrants who were carrying him and settling Mexico-Tenochtitlan, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mexi
Mexi, Mexih, Mexicatl, Nahua, o Mexicano
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 500v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=80&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).
