140 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
“Ana,” Nahuatl scribes needed to be able to identify salient
parts of a word to represent it either logographically or
phonetically, as well as to know how many sounds could
be left out or unrepresented and still allow the hieroglyph
to be read; the reader, in turn, needed to be able to identify
the images as the appropriate logogram or phonogram. So,
as the Nahuatl script was employed, it called upon both
readers and writers to wield a fairly refined sense of the
underlying parts and meanings of words, an “etymological
attitude” that is not demanded of readers and writers of
phonetic scripts. In figure 7.4, in order to read the place-
name that sits at the edge of the family fields (which could
possibly be read as “ Tullan,” “ Tulpan,” or “ Tultitlan”), a
reader would have to first identify the pictorial sign (tollin)
that was at its etymological root.
Because scribes had to strip down words to their ety-
mological roots to represent them and readers had to build
outward from etymology, it is unlikely that place-names
as they continued to be written graphically became “worn
coins.” Table 7.3 presents a list of parcialidades and known
tlaxilacalli names within Mexico-Tenochtitlan, along with
proposed translations and/or etymologies. The first col-
umn lists one of the four parcialidades to which the tlaxila-
calli belonged, the second gives the tlaxilacalli name, and the
third offers a reading of the meaning or etymology of that
name. The fourth and fifth columns are parallel data—in
column four are corresponding names from other places
with the same or similar etymology, and in column five are
those same corresponding place-names, this time written
in iconic script. In only one case (Atlixyocan) are the data
in columns four and five taken from Mexico-Tenochtitlan;
in all other cases, the toponyms are simply comparative,
taken from the names of conquered or tributary states out-
side of the city, for which we have better graphic evidence.
The etymologies of the names within the city are
largely unsurprising, in that they follow the contours of
the wider body of Nahuatl place-names: some names were
topographically descriptive, meaning that they referred
to salient landscape features or qualities, like the name
“Moyo tlan,” for the mosquitos that bred in the city’s
swampy west, or “Acalcaltitlan,” which means “next to the
boats,” likely for a docking station. Many of the names,
not surprisingly for a water-ringed city, have aquatic refer-
ences. Another subgroup refers to buildings or built struc-
tures, presumably ones that existed within the particular
tlaxilacalli. “ Teopan,” for example, means “temple.” And yet
a third category refers to historical events that unfolded
at a particular place. For instance, both “Mixiuca” (where
women give birth) and “ Temazcaltitlan” (next to the sweat
baths) in the parcialidad of San Pablo Teopan relate to the
history of foundation. As told in the Crónica mexicayotl,
right before the vision of Huitzilopochtli’s eagle, a woman
named Quetzalmoyahuatzin gave birth there and, follow-
ing the custom for postpartum women, was then bathed in
a sweat bath; this chronicle also adds that the chapel of San
Pablo Itepotzco was later erected on the spot. 29 So while in
some few cases, the names index historical events, they are
for the most part simply geographically descriptive. The list
also shows us one of the mind-puzzling features of place-
names: because of the scribal conventions described above,
the way a name is rendered may have some, but not all, ele-
ments of the name as it was used by speakers. Thus histori-
ans and epigraphers have been most successful in decoding
iconic place-names when an alphabetic list accompanies
them, as in the Codex Mendoza.The baTTLe of PRoPeR nouns
Creating table 7.3 meant drawing on place-names from
outside the city for parallels because no comprehensive
list of the city’s tlaxilacalli written in iconic script comes
down to us. In fact, there is no known comprehensive
alphabetic list of the city’s tlaxilacalli either—Caso, Calnek,
and Truitt have cobbled theirs from a variety of sources,
the most important one undoubtedly being Alzate’s map.figuRe 7.5. Unknown creator, map of the properties of Lázaro
Pantecatl and Ana Tepi, detail, ca. 1567. Archivo General de la Nación,
Mexico, Tierras 20, pte. 1, exp. 3, fol. 256v.