Tzihuacyocan (TetlRG)

The Spanish text of the Relación defines the place name as meaning “çerro de cogollos de palma” (“which means palm shoot hill/mountain;” folio 1 recto). If one accepts “palma” as referring broadly to plants with spikey foliage, this would seem to fit. This written description also suggests that locals may have “read” the glyph in a somewhat differently from the sparer alphabetic gloss on the map (see below), which omits any mention of the hill. The compound glyph sits to the right of an image of a church, the latter typically serving as a semantic indicator of an inhabited place. The church is depicted in a frontal view. It has a large arched doorway, crenelation along its roof line, and two towers, one with a conical roof, the other an arched affair with a bell hanging in it, surmounted by a cross rising out of an orb. A forked banner extends out of the shaft of the cross, facing right. A curved road or path bordered in black and containing human footprints issues out of the entryway of the church, passing by drawings of the region’s flora, a maguey plant and a nopal cactus, both with roots showing, as well as a tree that appears to be in bloom (see the historical contextualizing image). On the map, the road eventually arrives near the church of the cabecera (head town) of Tetliztaca. Tzihuayocan also is featured on the RG map of Cempohuallan (see below). However, in this case there is no obvious glyph or logogram associated with it, only the image of a church and an alphabetic gloss. These are situated near a hill or elevation with a somewhat unusual configuration, and there are several maguey-like plants nearby (these can be found all over the map, apparently showing the typical flora of the area, and are probably not intended as logograms of this particular place name), but the relationship of this element to the town is not clear. For more information about the Cempohuallan RG and Tzihuayocan see Mundy (1996), and Ballesteros García (2005).

Many glyphs for tzihuactli show what seems to be the agave stalk. It has the appearance of a tree (cuahuitl) having had branches cut off. Perhaps this tree or wood is there to underwrite the phonetic "hua" syllable.

A metaphorical use of tzihuactli is found in the huehuetlatolli (“elders’ wisdom; words of the elders”) compiled under the leadership of Fray Andrés de Olmos. In the published version’s glossary, an editor’s note tells us that “in the original Nahuatl, tzihuactli, teteihuitl, is a diphrasism that refers to two objects [used in] sacrificial rites.”