Nentequitl (MH737v)

The frontal view of a face is rare with people, but more common with deity images. This same simplified face also comes into several glyphs that have a teotl component, as though deities were increasingly personalized as compared to the teotl in the Codex Mendoza that was a half sun. The name Nentequitl is very popular or common in this digital collection. It is unclear whether farmworkers were being insulted as lazy and their work useless. Perhaps the name suggests that one could never get ahead, even with hard work.

The five extra days in the calendar of 360 days (xiuhpohualli) were called nemontemi (useless days). It was unlucky to be born on these days. A man who was born in this period was called nenoquich and a woman was called nencihuatl. This is explained in the Florentine Codex in Book 2, folio 12 recto (see: https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/2/folio/12r). These individuals were considered unlucky, ill-fated, and even useless. A great many individuals in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco have names beginning with the negative syllable Nen-. Perhaps they were born in that ill-fated period, or perhaps the negative syllable came to be even more liberally applied. With men, for instance, Nentequitl (perhaps a lazy worker) was much more common than Nenoquich. When presented visually, the nen- syllable could derive from nenetl (a figure or sculpture of a deity or a doll). Nenetl also had an association with women’s genitals, which has caused much speculation about a negativity associated with women and their sex, but that might have come from European religious influence. In the colonial context, such concepts and perceptions could easily become muddied.