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[edit] Turquoise-serpent or fire-serpent?
There has been some recent back'n'forth changes about whether xiuhcoatl more properly glosses as "turquoise serpent", or "fire serpent". I believe that the former is the more 'correct' in a literal etymological sense, while the latter interpretation has some validity but only in a broader associative sense. Will try to set out the reasoning here.
Per reliable Nahuatl dictionaries/grammars consulted, xiuh- is the root used in compounds that are formed from the Nahuatl word xihuitl (sometimes also written xiuitl or xihutl). This word has several meanings attached:
- xihuitl - "year [of 365 days, ie the vague or solar year]". Homonymous to the other meeanings.
- xihuitl - "herb, [green] grass". Typically vegetation with a blue/green (ie turquoise) foilage.
- xihuitl - "[blue-]green stone; turquoise (ie., the mineral)". Has connotation also of "precious".
- xihuitl - "the colour turquoise [blue-green]". In codices the actual colour appears more blueish than greenish.
There is also xīhuitl (with a long i vowel), meaning "comet".
By contrast, the common Nahuatl word for "fire" is tletl, root tle-.
To the best of my knowledge most Nahuatl scholars therefore gloss the word xiuhcoatl in a literal/etymological way as "turquoise serpent/snake". Also, iconographically Xiuhcoatl is typically shown with a year-sign on its tail, often accompanied by a sign for grass. In the Codex Borgia it is illustrated with a turquoise mirror (per Mary Miller & Karl Taube). From what I've seen these pictoral elements are interpreted by scholars as intended visual clues to its name. See also the accepted glosses for related words such as Xiuhtecuhtli ("Turqoise Lord").
However, there is a sense in which a gloss of "fire serpent" has an appropriateness. The mythical entity Xiuhcoatl is described as being a fire serpent, ie a snake with iconographic, ritual and symbolic associations with fire. There is also an underlying linkage between the several meanings of the word xihuitl—solar year, grass, and turquoise—and fire and heat (such as derived from the sun). As Nahuatl scholar Frances Karttunen notes in An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, p.324, entry on XIHU(I)-TL, "...but the simple form XIUH is used in compounds to convey the sense of greenness. It also serves as a modifier for heat, indicating intensity, as white and blue do for English. [eg 'white heat']" See also Miller & Taube's The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (1993, pp.188-189) saying much the same thing.
So, saying something like "Xiuhcoatl is Nahuatl for 'fire serpent'" is linguistically inaccurate as far as it goes. It would be more correct to say something like, "Xiuhcoatl is a mythical fire serpent. The name translates, however, most literally as 'turquoise serpent'". The mythical serpent has an association with fire; its name does not directly include the word for 'fire', although there is some essence in there that would have brought to mind the concept of fire/heat. --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
