Teicui (MH897r)

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Teicui (“Young Girl”) is attested here as a woman’s name. The glyph shows the head of a woman in profile, facing the viewer’s right. This is not the head of the tribute payer herself, but the head of a woman provided with the intention of writing the name in hieroglyphs. She wears the hairstyle that puts the ends of her braids up above or next to her forehead, which is emblematic of her gender, but also conveys a sense of an adult woman, even while the meaning of “teicui” is meant to convey a young age. On her visible cheek, the two short vertical lines for the verb (huahuana, to paint stripes, or the “hua” syllable) serves as an phonographic and iconographic indicator that the glyph refers to a woman (cihuatl), even though the actual name is Teicui.