Tepehuexoyocan (Osu34v)

Tepehuexoyocan (Osu34v)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tepehuexoyocan (perhaps "Place on the Mountain with Lots of Willow Trees"). It shows a standard, green, bell-shaped mountain or hill (tepetl) with its red and yellow slits tucked into the base. This landscape contributes to the semantics of the place name. Atop the tree is a vertical tree with a brown trunk and green foliage on a leader and two branches. Contrary to the reference to a "white" willow, this one is green, which is typical of most glyphs in this collection for the huexotl (see below). The -yocan locative suffix is not shown visually.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The contextualizing image shows how this town and its neighbor, Ocoyacac, both fall withing the jurisdiction of an encomendero, a Spanish with a grant (encomienda) giving him the right to extract tribute in coin, kind, or labor from these communities.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image: 
Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription: 

tepehuexoyocan

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

Tepehuexoyocan

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

1551–1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Grammar & Linguistics: 
Writing Features: 
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

sauce, willows, hills, mountains, cerro, cerros, montañas, nombres de lugares, place names, topónimo, topónimos

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
huexo(tl), white willow tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huexotl
-yocan (locative suffix), a place with a lot of the preceding noun, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yocan

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

posiblemente, "Lugar en la Montaña con Muchos Sauces Blancos"

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

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.

Image Source, Rights: 

"The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse." But please cite the Biblioteca Nacional de España and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs if you use any of these images here or refer to the content on this page, providing the URL

Historical Contextualizing Image: