Nanotl (MH765r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Nanotl (perhaps "Mother-like") is attested here as a woman's name. She is the wife of Tlanauh, a ruler who wears a cape and sits in a building. Her name is represented visually as an object that may be a tumpline made from woven reeds (petlatl). It has loops at both ends, suggesting that it would be tied to a rope that might wrap around a bundle on one's back.
Stephanie Wood
Sahagún explains Nanotl as being like nanyotl, mother-ness, or being similar to tenan, which he translates as "mother of someone" or "mother in general." See Bernardino de Sahagún, Los cantares a los dioses (1938), 68. It makes sense that this is a name given to a woman.
See some examples of the use of a tumpline, below.
Stephanie Wood
ynes nanotl
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
nombres de mujeres, mecapales, tejido, esposa de noble or gobernante
Nanotzin, a woman's name and perhaps a tumpline, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nanotzin
Nanotzin (nombre de una mujer importante)
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 765r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=608&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).
