Acoyotl (MH522v)

Acoyotl (MH522v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Acoyotl shows four water [atl flows with a droplet at each end and lines of current in the streams. These jets of water come from the base of the head of a coyote (coyotl), shown in profile, looking toward the viewer's right. His ears are up, his one visible eye is open, and a nose and mouth are somewhat visible.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The name Water-Coyote remains to be analyzed more fully, but there is an original feathered shield in the Welt Museum, Vienna, that has what may be a coyote (it looks much like the one from folio 5 verso of the Codex Mendoza, below). Seemingly emerging from its mouth is an undulating strip of water combined with a strip of fire, representing the teoatl tlachinolli metaphor relating to sacred warfare. The water and fire strips are not entwined, as is often the case, but the flames are clearly flames and the stream of water has two shells at its tip. The animal's coat is water-colored, and there is a swirl in the blue feathers that is reminiscent to the way water glyphs can swirl. [To see the image of the shield, see the study from the curator of the Vienna museum as pubished in Mexicolore in 2011.] Water-Coyote is also a figure in stories from Native communities in what is now the U.S. Southwest.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

nigolas acoyotl

Gloss Normalization: 

Nicolás Acoyotl

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Syntax: 
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

coyotes, water, agua

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

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 522v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=124&st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: