Tlilli tlapalli

Fri Jun 22 19:30:50 UTC 2001

I remember there was some discussion about this question, and
some very good points made.  I was just reading Leon-Portilla's
"Aztec Thought and Culture," and learning about Garabay's (sp?)
idea of defrasismos--two words that, when combined, mean quite
something else.  This apparently was a strong feature of Nahuatl.
(I ask those well-informed scholars among us to excuse my naive
remarks here...)

According to Garabay, "the black ink, the red ink" clearly meant
"wisdom."  Leon-Portilla sets out numerous examples of speeches
that contain this phrase, and its meaning seems quite consistent.
If the speaker wishes to include actual writing media, he always
seems to add that later.  The same principle applies to "precious
flower, precious gem," which means "beautiful."  I am even privately
wondering if "a face, a heart" means "a good character."

A big conjecture (leap of fantasy?):  black and red are easily the
best colors for making ink drawings/letters.  In the European
culture one sees the same thing.  And Chinese.  Other colors are
unreliable--fade, change, or otherwise deteriorate.  I am imagining
that the early writers (Tolteca, perhaps?) used predominately this
red and black ink.  Later Mexica, who equated Toltec with supreme
knowledge and art, may have come to refer to Toltec and/or Culhua
manuscripts in this way--or perhaps there were other colors which
simply faded away.  Meanwhile, as their arts developed,  they
came up with workable paints of other bright and permanent colors
(which persist to this day, although some have changed their hue).

Of course, it is only a guess.  We will never know, will we--since
the most valuable texts of all went up in flames.

Cristi

> Does anyone have any idea what could have been the reason Dibble and =
> Anderson (Florentine Codex VI: 259) translated the metaphor "Intlil =
> intlapal" as "their black, their red" rather than "their black, their
> = colors"? The translation of "tlapalli" as "red" keeps cropping up in
> = modern sources. I can't remember where all I've seen it; another
> example = is in Garibay's vocabulary, in the Porrua edition of the
> Castillian text = of the Florentine Codex; "Tlapallan" is translated
> as "Lugar del rojo". = Molina (I, 27r; II 130v) makes it clear that
> "tlapalli" and the radical = "tlapal-" refer to pigments for painting
> or dying in general, regardless = of hue; the same is true of Sahagun
> (Florentine Codex XI: 245). Why red? = The only possible explanation I
> can come up with is that "colorado, -a" = in old Castillian was used
> for red, and retains this meaning today, = especially in informal
> speech; this could have led to imprecise = translations.
>
> Comments regarding the deeper meanings of this metaphor, or possible =
> modern survivals, would also be greatly appreciated.
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Wright
>
> ------=_NextPart_000_0008_01C0E9B7.92C45040
> Content-Type: text/html;
>  charset="iso-8859-1"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
> <HTML><HEAD>
> <META content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1" =
> http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
> <META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=3DGENERATOR>
> <STYLE></STYLE>
> </HEAD>
> <BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Does anyone have any idea what could
> = have been the=20 reason Dibble and Anderson (Florentine Codex VI:
> 259) translated the = metaphor=20 "Intlil intlapal" as "their black,
> their red" rather than "their black, = their=20 colors"? The
> translation of "tlapalli" as "red" keeps cropping up in = modern=20
> sources. I can't remember where all I've seen it; another example is
> in=20 Garibay's vocabulary, in the Porrua edition of the Castillian
> text of = the=20 Florentine Codex; "Tlapallan" is translated as "Lugar
> del rojo". Molina = (I, 27r;=20 II 130v) makes it clear that
> "tlapalli" and the radical "tlapal-" refer = to=20 pigments for
> painting or dying in general, regardless of hue; the same = is true=20
> of Sahagun (Florentine Codex XI: 245). Why red? The only
> possible=20 explanation I can come up with is that "colorado, -a" in
> old Castillian = was used=20 for red, and retains this meaning today,
> especially in informal speech; = this=20 could have led to imprecise
> translations.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial
> size=3D3>Comments regarding the deeper meanings = of this=20 metaphor,
> or possible modern survivals, would also be greatly=20
> appreciated.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT
> face=3DArial>Best regards,</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT
> face=3DArial>David Wright</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
>
> ------=_NextPart_000_0008_01C0E9B7.92C45040--
>