Ecatl (MH874v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Ecatl is attested here as a man's name. It shows an anthropomorphic head in profile, facing toward the viewer's right. This head has a buccal mask, the wind-blowing device associated with the divine force of the wind (Ehecatl). This more than covers the name Ecatl (air, breath). The hair on the head is short and standing straight up. Wrinkles also appear on the cheeks.
Stephanie Wood
A great many glyphs in this collection start with Eca- when Ehecatl is expected, given the iconography. The gloss here gives "Ecatl," but the visuals suggest "Ehecatl." We are recognizing the possibility of an unintentional oral abbreviation of Eheca- to Eca-. But, if the shortening of the name is intentional, it may be a response to the edict of 1540 prohibiting the naming of Nahua children after deities that led to a favoring of Ecatl over Ehecatl, as a kind of disguise. See Norma Angélica Castilla Palma, "Las huellas del oficio y lo sagrado en los nombres nahuas de familias y barrios de Cholula," Dimensión Antropológica v. 65 (sept.-dic. 2015), 186. Castilla also mentions how there were pressures to stop using names from the tonalpohualli, and this led to the dropping of the number that went with the day name. Such a number is absent here. So the whole result is a lessening of the sacred aspects, perhaps mainly for outsiders.
Stephanie Wood
dio yecatl
Diego Ecatl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
wind, viento, deidades, deities, divine forces, fuerzas divinasaliento, aire
eca(tl), air/breath, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ecatl
eheca(tl)/Ehecatl, wind or the divine force or spirit of the wind, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ehecatl
El Aliento o El Viento
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 874v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=820&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).