Huitzotecatl (MH639v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name or ethnicity, Huitzotecatl, shows a four-legged animal with a long tail. It sits in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. Its ears are small and upright. It seems to have claws. Some short lines of texturing appear on its back.
Stephanie Wood
Ahuitzotl was the name of a Mexica ruler, and some humble men were named after famous rulers. The ruler may have been associated with the mythical animal, a creature that could lure people to their deaths, such as grabbing them and pulling them under the water of the lakes so that they would drown. The animal in the glyph may be an ahuitzotl. If so, perhaps the starting letter "a" has dropped away inadvertently from the gloss. The -tecatl suggests a person from a place that may have been named after the animal.
Stephanie Wood
uitzotecatl
Huitzotecatl (or Ahuitzotecatl?)
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
animales, gobernantes
ahuitzo(tl), water animal, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ahuitzotl
-tecatl, affiliation with a place, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecatl
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 639v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=361st=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).