(no subject)

[Michael McCafferty]

Tom:

Interesting name.

Maybe someone has a good, quick answer for you. Here's what I can see 
on the surface of things.

tzompa:mitl is Nahuatl for 'coral tree'

tzompantli is Nahuatl for 'skull rack'

Either could give you "tzompantla", indicating a "place where there is 
an abundance," /-tlah/, of either coral trees or skull racks. Vowel 
length is the diff.

"tzontzompantla" would appear to indicate a distributive nature for the above.

A- in "Atzontzompantla" would turn all this into water. Splash!

Now what does this mean? I don't know.

Maybe there is or was a spring in the area that, as it came out of the 
ground, radiated in a way that reminded people, visually, of the 
flowers of a coral tree?

Michael


Quoting grigsby tom <tom_grigsby at yahoo.com>:

>
>
> Estimados Listeros,
>  
> A long time ago I collected for the village ojo de agua the word
> Atzontzompantla, which in Tepoztecan folk etymology was said to mean
> "the place where the water spreads out like hair."  from ? water+head
> hair+flag-like.  Any other suggestions or is this an acceptable gloss?
> Thanks,
>  
> Tom Grigsby
>  
> Actually the old folks waxed a lot more poetic and with romantic
> license with something like, "Place where the water spreads out like
> the hair of a woman."
>
>
>




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