atlapalli.

Headword: 
atlapalli.
Principal English Translation: 

a leaf, or a bird wing (see Molina and Karttunen); also part of the metaphorical expression for commoners, macehualli

Orthographic Variants: 
ahtlapalli
IPAspelling: 
ɑhtɬɑpɑlli
Alonso de Molina: 

atlapalli. ala de aue, o hoja de arbol, o de yerua.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 8r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

AHTLAPAL-LI wing; leaf / ala de ave, o hoja de árbol, o de yerba (M) X has MĀTLAPAL-LI ´wing,´literally ´hand-side.´ See TLAPAL-LI.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 7.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

ahtlapalli = Part of the expression "in cuitlapilli in ahtlapalli," a metaphor for the common people.
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 221.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Injc Vme Parrapho: ipan mjtoa, in quenjn qujnpepenaia Iuezes. In tlatoanj oc cenca qujmocujtlaujaia in tetlatzontequjliliztli, qujcaquja in jxqujch in jneteilhujl: ioan in jchoqujz, in jnentlamachiliz in jnetolinjliz in cujtlapilli, atlapalli in jcnotlacatl, in motolinja in maçeoalli = Second Paragraph, in which it is described how they choose judges. The ruler watched especially over the trials; he heard all the accusations and the complaints, the afflictions, and the misery of the common folk, the orphans, the poor, and the vassals (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 54.

cuitlapilli, atlapalli = tail, wing; a metaphor for commoners, subjects
John Bierhorst, A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos, 1985.

Cuitlapilli, in atlapalli. Quitoznequi: maceoalli = The tail and the wing. This means the common people.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 146–147.

inteocuitlatlapal ica = with its golden wings (suggesting a possible alternate translation of a passage from the Cantares Mexicanos, Bierhorst, 314–15, verse 5)
James Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards: Postconquest Central Mexican History and Philology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 147.

tiqujmjle, ticacaxe tiez, tehoatl timalacaioaz, tehoatl tecauhiooaz, ticeoalloaz: motlan mocalaqujz in cujtlapilli, in atlapalli = thou art to be the one with the bundle, the carrying frame. Thou art to be the umbrage, thou art to be the shade, the shadow, beneath which the vassals are to enter (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 184.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

cuitlapilli, ahtlapalli = la cola, el ala [la gente del pueblo]
Bernardino de Sahagún, Coloquios y Doctrina Cristiana, 1524.

cuitlapilli, atlapalli = los vasallos, los macehuales (sixteenth century, Quauhtinchan)
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 153, nota 5.

themes: 
Animals, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, Fish, etc.
Metaphors, Proverbs, Riddles
Plants, Trees, Flora
Social Hierarchy, Commoners, Elites