Tohueyo (MH901r)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tohueyo (“Outsider” or “Foreigner”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows the head of a man in profile, looking toward the viewer’s right. He wears a headdress with two upright, wavy feathers and a band that goes around his head at the level of his forehead. He also wears a nose plug and an ear plug. His identification as an outside or foreigner (tohueyo) derives from these attributes. Interestingly, the gloss doubles the tohueyo, perhaps to say that the tribute payer’s name is Tohueyo and he is indeed an outsider.
Stephanie Wood
See below for other examples of tohueyo glyphs. They are all treated the same as names. It is less clear in the other examples whether all these people actually held this name or this was just a label applied to people who came from other lands or pueblos.
The original Tohueyo was somewhat mythical or legendary as a Chichimec or Huasteco (two "others" in the perspective of the Nahuas of the central valley). Exotic and savage, he supposedly seduced the daughter of the Toltec ruler named Huemac, injecting Toltec society with chaos. But while Huemac sent Tohueyo off to war, hoping he would be killed, he apparently proved to be a valiant and successful warrior. Still, some people believed that the divine force Tezcatlipoca used the guise of Tohueyo to sow discord and distrust in Tollan (Tula). See: Alfonso Arellano, "Tula: Myth and History," Voices of Mexico (2008, 73–79).
Stephanie Wood
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
foreigners, extranjeros, ethnicities, etnicidades, othering, otherness, otredad, alteridad, nombres de hombres
tohueyo, outsider or foreigner, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tohueyo
El Otro, o El Extranjero
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 901r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=874&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).
