tequixquitl

[idiez at mac.com]

Joe,
	I talked to my sister-in-law about tequesquite. She says when she was
little,
and still living on the ranch (El Tepetate, Zacatecas), her mother
would buy
tequesquite, in the form of granules, like table salt. It was only used
as a meat
tenderizer. For example, if they were boiling a chicken, and the meat
was very
tough, they would put tequesquite in the water. You can still buy it
here in Zacatecas.
	I'm also stumped with how "quixtia" gets nominalized in this word, if
indeed this
is the correct root. Nominalization including the preterite suffix
"-qui", however,  is common in
Huastecan Nahuatl. For example, "nitlamachtia" > "nitlamachtihqui"  >
"nitlamachtihquetl".
tequixqui
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Centro de Estudios Prospectivos
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
Francisco García Salinas 604
Colonia CNOP
Zacatecas, Zac. 98053
México
+52 (492) 768-6048
idiez at mac.com
www.idiez.org.mx
On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 05:13  PM, r. joe campbell wrote:

> Note the following sentence quoted from Sahagun's _Psalmodia
> Christiana_,
> edited by Arthur Anderson (p. 74):
>
>    Ic oitlacauh in cemanaoatl, in tlalticpactli, ca **otequixquiquiz**,
> otetzacat, aocmo vel muchiua in *tonacauitl*, aocmo no qualli in
> itlaaquillo.
>
>   Translation given: Thus the world, the earth, was corrupted; for
> niter
> spread; [the soil] grew sterile.  No longer could our foodstuffs be
> produced; likewise no longer were their fruits good.
>
>    I have a question and a comment:
>
>   1) first, the comment: on checking the facsimile of the Psalmodia, I
> found that the modern book contains a typographical error; the word is
> "tonacaiutl", not "tonacauitl".  Further, the 'our' in the English
> '...our
> foodstuffs...' translation is probably related to the initial "to-",
> based
> on the assumption that it is a first person plural possessive.  But
> with
> the correct spelling -- and regularized to "tonacayotl" -- it is
> obvious
> that it involves the nominalization of "to:na" embedded in "-yotl".
> And the absolutive ending made the possessive interpretation impossible
> anyway.
>
>   2) second, the question:  I assume that "otequixquiquiz" is the
> preterit
> of "tequixquiquiza", with the noun "tequixquitl" embedded in the verb
> "quiza".  I had assumed that the Spanish borrowing "tequexquite" was a
> widely used vocabulary item in Mexican Spanish, but I have just
> multiple
> evidence to the contrary.
>
>   Can someone enlighten me on this issue?
>
>   As an additional bonus, I would like some helpful comment on the
> morphological composition of the original Nahuatl noun "tequixquitl".
> --My dubits are concerned with whether "-quixtia" ever nominalizes like
> this.
>
> Tlazohcamatihtzin,
>
> Joe
>
> p.s.  Note -- Dr. Cecilio A. Robelo, _Diccionario de Aztequismos: o sea
> jardin de las raices aztecas, no date, Mexico, DF
>
>  p. 262: tequesquite. -- (te-quix=quitl: tetl, piedra; quixquitl,
> brotante.  eflorescente; derivado de quiza, salir espontaneamente:
> "Piedra que sale por si' sola, eflorescente"). Eflorescencias salinas
> naturales, formadas de sesquicarbonato de soda y de cloruro de sodio.
>
> [footnote to above] El tequesquite, del que haci'an mucho useo los
> mexicanos, tiene hoy todavi'a muchos uusos en la industria y en la
> cocina.
> Hay de cuatro clases: espumilla, confitillo, cascarilla y polvillo.
> Las dos primeras especies, que son las mejores, se forman de la agua
> detenida en pequen~os pozos cuando baja o refluye la laguna de Texcoco.
> Cuando se avapora el li'quido bajo la influencia de los rayos solares,
> queda un sedimento confusamente cristalizado.  Las otras dos especies,
> que
> son menos estimadas, son las eflorescencias producidas espontaneamente
> en
> el suelo.  Se emplea el tequesquite en la colada de los lienzos, y
> jaboneros lo usan como alcalino para saponificacio'n de las grasas.
>
>