Maldonado (Osu19r)
This painted simplex Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the Spanish surname Maldonado. It refers to the Spanish colonial administrator of laws, called a Fiscal, who apparently also appears on folio 5v of this same codex. There, he is described as deceased. On that folio, the orthography of the name is perfect. But, here, it hardly looks like Maldonado. The hieroglyph for this name has yet to be deciphered satisfactorily, too. This glyph looks like a pair of wooden tongs or pincers, at least some kind of tool that is hand-held, or perhaps a slingshot. What appears to be a tie with a bow either reinforces the Y-shape at its base or binds two sticks together. Above the tie and below the curvature at the top of the sticks, there is something red and white (perhaps a flint knife, a tecpatl, which is often red and white). If the tool holds a knife, perhaps it is some kind of cutting tool.
Stephanie Wood
None of the terms for tongs, pincers, or slingshots in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary sound anything like Maldonado. Hand is maitl, which could offer the Mal- syllable at the start of the name; a hand is not shown, it would have to be implied. Sometimes tlacuilos will switch the letters “d” and “t” in Spanish (as in “noueda y tos” for “noventa y dos,” seen in a document by Andrés Moreno from 1597 in the Archivo General de Notarías) , which could render Maldonado as Maltonato, perhaps something easier to represent phonetically in Nahuatl. But even that does not bring up a term that would fit. Marc Thouvenot shared with Alonso Zamora (Tlacuilolli: A Blog about Mesoamerican Writing Systems, https://tlacuilolli.com/2023/11/27/whats-in-a-name-the-mystery-of-a-glyph-in-codex-osuna/) a glyph from the Matrícula de Huexotzinco (MH904v, below) that does intersect a little bit with the visual nature of this one. Another Amatlacuilol includes a hand holding the Y-shaped wood. Unfortunately, the paper object held up by the tool is not the object in the pincers that are supposed to represent Maldonado. Something else worth exploring is the Tzatzapin glyph (Batalla Rosado, 2018, 90, Fig. 14), which provides perhaps a vague hint toward the glyph here, but sounds nothing like Maldonado.
Stephanie Wood
malabuado (?)
Maldonado (?)
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Jeff Haskett-Wood
mano, una forma de Y, tecpatl, herramienta, herramientas, madera, nombres de hombres, nombres de españoles
mai(tl), hand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/maitl
Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.
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