Bodily excretions, oaks and caterpillars

[Gordon Whittaker]

Hi everyone,

Thanks to Magnus, Fran and Michael for the feedback on this (for some)
rather touchy topic.

Magnus,

I never said that "owner of excrement" is a bad translation -- just an
"extraordinarily unlikely" one. And not because of the potential "giggles"
that Joe was concerned about. In a previous mail I had already mentioned
that there are a number of names that would strike us as less than
flattering, such as the name of the luckless king of Tlatelolco,
Moquihuix. And names like "Good for Nothing" are also found (even as the
name of a lord!). Clearly, much freer license was given to naming than
would be possible in most Western countries (even in the U.S., which is
unusually liberal, but even here there are limits when basic human dignity
is clearly infringed).

Scatological references in humour and insults seem to occur in
Mesoamerica, as they do elsewhere around the world. But cuitla- has a
wider reference than simply 'excrement' in its literal sense. Thus,
teocuitlatl for 'gold' is not necessarily well translated as 'divine
excrement', given the standard English use and understanding of the latter
word. And, of course, we should remember that cuitla- does occur in
compounds involving the meanings 'back', 'tail', and 'brownish' -- though,
as I have argued, apparently *not* in the additional senses claimed by
Simeon, at least not in the vast bulk of Classical texts.

You also mention that 'owner of' is the best, but not necessarily an
exact, translation of the -e'/hua' suffixes. I agree. But regardless of
whether we render the personal name written Cuitlahua as "Excrement-Owner"
à la Ross Hassig or as 'One Who Has (to Do With) Excrement' or even as
'Excreter', the name is puzzling -- not morphologically but semantically.
That means we simply don't understand the reference, which may well be
figurative in a way as yet unknown to us. Assuming, as I have said before,
we are indeed dealing with Cuitla- + -hua', which is not proven.

Fran,

You are, of course, right about the final glottal stop on -e' and -hua'. I
have been citing spellings in manuscripts where Cuitlahua is only given as
here, i.e. ambiguously, without an h or grave/circumflex accent. And I
have always written the glottal stop in my mails (as ', which I prefer to
h) when I discuss the morphology as opposed to the attestations. In
previous mails on this thread I have argued that the place Cuitlahuac
cannot be segmented as Cuitla- + -hua' or + huac- (from huaqui) because of
the locative suffix -c (instead of -co). The personal name may likewise
involve an obscure element or elements, something other than the assumed
cuitla- + -hua'. As you say, the issue is maddeningly opaque!

Michael,

Great suggestions! I had thought about the caterpillar and the oak, but
figured that Nahuatl scribes would have then opted at least sometimes for
a logogram CATERPILLAR or OAK reflecting the intended meaning of the name
rather than always choosing cuitla (EXCREMENT) as a rebus phonetic
element. I also was unable to find a cuitlaahuatl in any source (elision
not being expected here, despite Zacapoaxtla); the meaning would be
'brown(ish) oak' or 'brown(ish) caterpillar'. Nor is there a single
incidence of the place name or personal name spelt in alphabetic texts as
Cuitlahua or Cuitlahuac, which troubles me a bit. But I do indeed like
'Brown Oak (or Caterpillar)' as a name! Or even 'Brown Huactli Bird' if
the personal name had ended in a c. There again one would expect at least
one hieroglyphic rendition with a bird sign.

Let's hope something turns up eventually to dispel the fog! Such issues
can be fascinating, not least because they cause wider issues to be
rethought.

Best,
Gordon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gordon Whittaker
Professor
Linguistische Anthropologie und Altamerikanistik
Seminar fuer Romanische Philologie
Universitaet Goettingen
Humboldtallee 19
37073 Goettingen
Germany
tel./fax (priv.): ++49-5594-89333
tel. (office): ++49-551-394188
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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