Tecuitzin (MH817v)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tecuitzin (perhaps “Revered Lord”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows the head of a man in profile, looking toward the viewer’s right. Below the head is a stone (tetl), which is a phonetic indicator that the man is meant to be seen as a lord (tecuhtli), even though this term is often shown in glyphs as a pointed diadem that would be tied around the foreheads of lords. The stone is horizontal with the typical diagonal stripes that alternate dark and light and the curling ends. The -tzin suffix is not shown visually.
Stephanie Wood
This -tzin is probably a reverential suffix, but it could be a rare diminutive, given the lack of other signs of nobility. The orthography of this name–with the “i” following the “u”-- is not the standard, but it is known. There is a Tetecuitzin who appears in the works of Chimalpahin, for instance. And Thelma Sullivan writes: “El tecutli (también tecuitli, tecuictli) era fundador de una teccalli, casa de mayorazgo, o una pilcalli, casa solariega. Fueron llamados 'Principales' por los españoles." See: Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del siglo XVI en lengua náhuatl (1987), 51.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
tecuhtli, teuctli, nobles, nobleza, nombres de hombres
tecuh(tli), a lord, a high noble, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecuhtli
-tzin (reverential suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzin
Señor
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 817v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=709&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).