Tlamaca (MH538r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name or status, Tlamaca ("He Serves," attested here as a man's name), shows the head of a man in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. His hair is somewhat longer than the normal short haircut. His mouth is open. Perhaps he is meant to look youthful.
Stephanie Wood
If this glyph does not represent a servant, it may be an ethnic epithet, "Different," or indicating someone from Tlamanca (modern state of Puebla). If that is the case, the letter “n” has inadvertently dropped away. Tlamaca (possibly meaning Tlamanca) is given in this manuscript several times as a name. Three men of this name also appear in Congregaciones civiles de Tulancingo, eds. Jesús Ruvalcaba and Ariane Baroni (1994, 83) and in other sources. While it translates literally as "to provide food" ("dar de comer" in some sources), perhaps it became equated with servant, similar to tetlacualti.
Stephanie Wood
diego.tlamaca
Diego Tlamaca
Stephanie Wood
1560
Stephanie Wood
servir, paje, joven, nombres de hombres
tlamaca, to serve (food, or provide clothing to someone), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlamaca
tlamanca, separate or different, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlamanca
Administra la Comida
Alonso de Molina
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 538r, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=155&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).