some doubts

[Frances Karttunen]

You seem to be reading Sahagun's Primeros memoriales, the section about the
water-tamale festival.  One of the activities at the festival was that
people designated/costumed as "Mazatecs" pulled live snakes and frogs from a
basin of water and put them into their mouths.  This is illustrated with a
large painting in the PM.  The University of Oklahoma Press has published a
color facsimile of the complete manuscript and in a separate volume a
translation of the text by Thelma Sullivan with annotations by a number of
of other major scholars of the Aztec world.

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>From: Leonel Hermida <leonelhermida at netc.pt>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <nahuat-l at server.umt.edu>
>Subject: some doubts
>Date: Sun, Nov 14, 1999, 7:08 AM
>

> 1. in oiuh mito cecni, zan ye no iuh mochihuaya
> (as it is told elsewhere, so likewise was it done)
>
> o-iuh mito = iuh o-mihtoh ? Is it common to have the preterit mark o-
> 'anticipated'? Or is there any reason I don't know?

The prefix o- is usually found with verbs in the preterite, but its function
is to state that something happened (or will have happened) before some
other event. It can be paired with the future tense if something in the
future will happen only after something else has happened.  So o- is more
properly called the antecessive prefix and not thought of as just a
redundant preterite marker.  Once an o- has appeared in a clause or series
of clauses, it doesn't have to be repeated on every verb.
>
> 2. in momazacoahuiani, intla elti, iciuhca mimiqui
> (he who partakes of the mazacoatl, if aggressive, quickly dies)
>
> is 'mazacoatl' some kind of venomous snake?
It usually refers to a boa constructor, i.e., a snake big enough to strangle
a deer.
> is it the 'snake(?)' which is aggressive?
Elti is "careful" rather than "aggressive."  I would think the text would
read "intlaca" rather than "intla" and the sense would be that whoever
handles a mazacoatl, if he isn't careful, will be in mortal danger.
> is mimiqui an 'intensive' of miqui?
Probably distributive: dying here a little and there a little.
>
> 3. ihuan in aquin mimiqui, in quin opeuh coni
> (and he who has epilepsy, after it has just begun, drinks it)
>
> now 'mimiqui' has another meaning; what are the shades of
> meaning expressed by reduplication of the verb?
Same thing, I think.  An epileptic loses consciousness following seizures.
He dies a little here and dies a little there.
> would it be better *tlaconi? *quiconi? or is 'coni' an 'hopeless'
> intransitive?
The "i" is the transitive verb meaning 'to drink something'.  It's so
minimal in form that it usually takes the directional on- prefix, apparently
just to give it some weight.  The c- preceeding on-i is the third person
singular specific object prefix, which would have the form qui- if it
preceded a verb or a verbal prefix beginning with a consonant.  So literally
coni is "(he)-it-drinks."  If you want to say "He drinks (nonspecific,
unspecified stuff)" you'd use tla-i.
>
> 4. Here I'd welcome a litteral translation (as far as possible):
>
> "Manca in atl oncan temia in cocoa ihuan in cueyame
> ihuan in yehuantin motenehua Mazateca oncan quintoloaya
> in cocoa zan yoyoltihuia".
>
> is 'manca' a pluperfect of 'mani' (put)?
> does 'oncan' mean 'there'? or has other meaning?
> is temia the causative of 'temi'= fill up ?
>
> Now, there must have been some tank (?) where had been
> put water (manca in atl) and that was filled up (temia) with
> snakes and frogs (in cocoa ihuan in cueyame); and then the
> people called Mazateca (in yehuantin motenehua Mazateca)
> 'lowered the snakes down' (quintoloaya) = made them
> disappear (?) or = swallowed them down (?) alive (??)
> ('yoli' is to live; is 'yoyoltihuia' = as they were alive?)

You should see the illustration in PM.  The "Mazatecah" are dancing around
with tails of live snakes hanging out of their mouths.  It sure beats
swallowing goldfish!
>