Atlixco (MH894r)
This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the place name Atlixco (perhaps “At Washing Place”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a body of water with seven streams, each one ending in a droplet/bead or a shell. The top two streams bend over a starry eye that has several currents of water underneath it and curving around it. A starry eye was an eye in the sky, a star that could look down upon earth.
Stephanie Wood
According to Gordon Whittaker (Library of Congress, 4/18/2023), when the water is on the perimeter, such as it is here, the phonetic value of water (atl) is "al" and not "a." He suggests that the verb at play in this glyph, therefore, is altia, to wash or bathe something or someone--in this case, the eye.
Of course, looking into water is also a possibility here, and we learn from Alonso de Molina that one could foretell the future by looking into water (atl nicmana). It is also interesting how close this water appears to natural springs and whirlpools (e.g., Xopanatl and Tlalatl, see below). The glyph for the place name ixicayan shows how the water (probably a natural spring) emerges from the horizontal opening at the base of a hill or mountain.
Stephanie Wood
sanc pedro atlixco
San Pedro Atlixco
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
agua, lavar, ojos, ver, nombres de lugares
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
ix(tli), eye, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ixtli
-co (locative suffix), in or at, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
En el Lugar del Lavado
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 894r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=860&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).
