Xico (MH679r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Xico (perhaps “Bumblebee” or “Honeybee”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a bee (xicotli, or xicohtli, with the glottal stop) in profile, its head upwards and mostly facing toward the viewer’s right. Both eyes, however, seem to be shown in a frontal perspective. The bee’s body is striped horizontally, its legs are extended forward, and its wings are raised. The wings have a detailed design.
Stephanie Wood
In the sixteenth century, there was a metaphorical diphrase found in the Florentine Codex, "xicotli pipiolti," which referred to people who got invited to spend time with the nobles. [See: Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 163.] Thus, perhaps Xico was a name that meant privileged or spoiled.
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
bees, abejas, abejorros, jicotes, insects, insectos, nombres de hombres
xico(tli), bumblebee or honeybee, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xicotli
Abejorro, o Jicote
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 679r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=438&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).
