Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Nahuatl in the early years

[Chichiltic Coyotl]

>Paul Anderson wrote
>
>“Ixayac”
>I have this for “face”. It is a rock face, but the two girls call their
>secret place that because it looks like a human face or mask. (There has
>been discussion of masks already in the chapter.)
>

I have a question on i:xa:yac. The following are only my thoughts on the
meaning so please do not take them as being "gospel".
I:xa:yac ?appears? to be a compound of i:x-tli (face, eye, surface) and
xa:yaca-tl (face, mask). I'm assuming two things when these two nouns come
together - 1) the "x" from xa:yaca-tl is dropped and the length of the vowel
a: remains the same. This compound ?appears? to translate as "face mask" or
possibly it's just a doubling up of the words for "face", however, is this a
logical compound considering that xa:yaca-tl appears to cover both concepts
of "face" and "mask"? A compound like co:a:xa:yac "snake mask" would appear
to make more sense. Would xa:yaca-tl by itself suffice as a suitable
translation for "face mask"?

Did the Nahua have the same concepts for both "face" and "mask"?

Thanks,

EZR




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