Xaltomaxochitl (MH796r)
This is a black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Xaltomaxochitl, which is a flower from a plant called the jaltomato in English. The plant produces a black to purple berry that tastes something like a grape and something like a tomato. The plant is also used as a medicinal cure for fevers. The name is attested here as pertaining to a woman. The glyph shows a flower (xochitl) with four rounded petals and a small circle at the center, resulting in something of a quincunx shape. Above the flower is a horizontal row of five small circles. These horizontal circles might represent the fruit called xaltomatl, or they could be simply tomatoes, not meant literally but intending to provide phonetic support for the term that ends in -tomatl.
Stephanie Wood
Women's names in this collection are rare compared to men's because married women and daughters are represented by the male head of household, the person responsible for most tribute payments. Notice how women's names often have a flower component (-xoch-), much more often than men's names do.
Stephanie Wood
ma.a. xalthomaxochitl
María Xaltomaxochitl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
flores, comida, frutas, fiebres, medicinas, salud, nombres de mujeres
xaltoma(tl), a type of berry that is a cross between a tomato and a grape, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xaltomatl
xoch(itl), flower, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xochitl
Flor de la Jaltomata
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 796r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=666&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).