Cacahuaxochitl (MH885v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Cacahuaxochitl (“Cacao Flower”) is attested here as a woman’s name. The flower is (xochitl) not botanically related to the cacao tree or its blossom. It is a flower that is used in a beverage called tejate (in Mexican Spanish today). The glyph shows a vertical flower with three visible petals and texturing. Sitting on top of the flower are two black cacao (cacahuatl) beans. Cacao was used for making a chocolate beverage.
Stephanie Wood
A popular name for this tree in Ecuador is molinillo. Its botanical name is Quararibea funebris, so it is sometimes called the “funeral tree.” Apparently, the people of Villa de Izúcar (now Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla) used to mourn deceased relatives under this tree. [See: Luis Manuel Cervantes Servin, Estudio etnobotanico, historico, de manejo y explotacion de "rosita de cacao" Quararibea funebris (La Llave) Vischer, Bombacaceae en los valles centrales de Oaxaca. Tesis de M.Sc. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1999, p. 12.] See below for another example of this glyph.
Stephanie Wood
agata . cacavaxochitl
Ágata Cacahuaxochitl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
flores, bebidas, tejate, cacao, chocolate, nombres de hombres

Flor de Cacao
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 885v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=843&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).
