Tunas and purslane

Sat Nov 5 03:43:31 UTC 2011

Hi David,

There is a commentary to the works of Hernández, vol. 7 in the UNAM series
(this vol. published 1984). A fantastic commentary is that of Alejandro de
Avila on The Badianus, published as The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo
Flora, Flora: The Aztec Herbal (Martin Clayton, Luigi Guerrini and
Alejandro de Ávila). I think it is $175 but I waited until Barnes and Noble
had a 50% discount for members on a book of their choice!.

There seems to be a conflation of nomenclature referring to species of the
Aizoaceae and Crassulaceae families on the one hand, and the verdolaga
(Portulaca oleracea L.) on the other. One evidence is what I mentioned of
the tetsmitl look-alike being Trianthema portulacastrum L. (Aizoaceae). It
is an interesting coincidence that in Latin the species name is
portulacastrum (I am not sure what the latin suffix means here)

In the Balsas valley there is also a:itsmitl, Ludwigia peploides (Kunth)
Raven (Onagraeae), which suggests a division te+ itsmitl vs. a:+ itsmitl.
Both are very low lying plants. A further example is tli:ltik a:itsmitl
Bourreria spathulata (Miers.) Hemsl. (Boraginaceae).

Many have identified tetsmitl as a Sedum spp. (Crassulaceae) another of
those fleshy-leaved plants (cf Alejandro de Avila, p. 86). In the Sierra
Norte de Puebla Kalanchoe pinnata (Lam.) (Crassulaceae) is called
sese:kpahtli. It is not unusual for fleshy-leafed plants to be called
something along these lines given that the leaves can be cut open parallel
to their surfaces and are cool inside, often used as compressed.

Where did you get the information on vowel length in Acatlan?

There is documentation of teo:no:chtli as a Pachycereus sp as various
authors have given this for Hernandez and Badianus. In Ameyaltepec I have
teono:xtli and in Oapan tekono:xtli. I checked as much as I could until I
finally resigned myself to a short /o/ in Ameyaltepec. The local cognate
for classical teo:- is tio:-, not teo-, so perhaps this is a frozen form
with irregular length. The /k/ is unusual in Oapan, but clearly the same
etymology. Oapan has komitetl for 'bone' and in several other cases seem to
insert /k/ for no clear reason or established pattern. Most often it is
deleted (telesa for teliksa, ixitl for ikxitl, etc.). I do not think
tekono:xtli is related to teko:n+no:chtli. But I would think that
teo:no:chtli and teno:chtli are different.

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 3:40 PM, David Wright <dcwright at prodigy.net.mx>wrote:

> Jonathan:****
>
> ** **
>
> Molina has “Tetzmitl. cierta yerua”. Since there doesn’t seem to be a noun
> “tetztli”, I first thought of te + i:tz + mi:tl, but this combination
> should take the form tei:tzmi:tl, considering the length of the first two
> vowels and the usual patterns of elision (at least in 16th century central
> Mexican Nahuatl), so I guess the first syllable must be the indefinite
> human possessive prefix te:-, thus te:tzmi:tl, “someone’s obsidian arrow”
> or “people’s obsidian arrow”, although I still miss the i: of i:tz(tli).
> The fact that in Acatlán, Guerrero i:tzmi:tl is “verdolaga” is what most
> tempts me to restore the i:.****
>
> ** **
>
> Your tekono:xtli looks like the hypothetical classical Nahuatl word
> teco:nno:chtli, (teco:ma - a)+ no:chtli (m + n > nn), “prickly pear of the
> globular pot” or “globular prickly pear”. Both morphophonological changes
> would be regular in early colonial central Nahuatl.****
>
> ** **
>
> Teono:xtli as Pachycereus grandis coincides with the illustration of the
> “Teonochtli” in the Codex Cruz-Badiano (f. 17v), depicting a single-column
> organ pipe cactus. I suppose that would be teo:no:chtli (teo: + no:chtli)
> in classical Nahuatl.****
>
> ** **
>
> So far the strongest evidence I have that the word teno:chtli was used to
> name a species of plant (other than the toponymical and mythical aspects
> mentioned by Roberto) is the brief description given by Francisco Hernández
> in the 16th century:****
>
>
> http://www.ibiologia.unam.mx/plantasnuevaespana/pdf/historia_de_las_plantas_III_6_4.pdf#page=10Other than this, the botanical use of the word seems quite scarce
> throughout time and space.****
>
> ** **
>
> (By the way, the Instituto de Biología of the UNAM put up a very
> functional electronic version of Hernández’s botanical treatise last year.
> That’s where the preceding URL is from; the home page is here:
> http://www.ibiologia.unam.mx/plantasnuevaespana/ I’ve needed a resource
> like this for years.)****
>
> ** **
>
> Thanks again for your help. I’ll copy this to the list to see if anyone
> has any more useful comments.****
>
> ** **
>
> *******************************************************
>
> De:   Jonathan Amith [jdanahuatl at gmail.com]****
>
> Enviado el: viernes, 04 de noviembre de 2011 07:36****
>
> Para: roberto romero****
>
> CC:   David Wright; Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org****
>
> Asunto:     Re: [Nahuat-l] Tunas and purslane****
>
> ** **
>
> Hi David,****
>
> ****
>
> In the Balsas valley of Guerrero tetsmitl is Portulaca oleracea L.
> (verdolaga). There is a tetsmitl "look alike" í:tlatlá:k in Oapan, that is
> an Aizoaceae, Trianthema portulacastrum L.****
>
> ****
>
> For the Opuntia I have tekono:xtli in Oapan, and teono:xtli (sic) for the
> inside rods of a certain cactus, apparently Pachycereus grandis Rose, but
> maybe also some Opuntias. .****
>
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