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camahua.

Headword: 
camahua.
Principal English Translation: 

for maize to end up waxy, or for maize to achieve ripeness (see M olina and Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants: 
camaua, camaoa
IPAspelling: 
kɑmɑːwɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

camaua. (pret. ocamauac.) pararse el mayz serazo, o casi del todo sazonado.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 12r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

CAMĀHU(A) for maize to achieve ripeness / pararse el maiz sarazo, o casi del todo sarazonado (M) [(1)Tp.113,(1),Zp.144].
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 23.

Attestations from sources in English: 

camaoa = it becomes yellowish (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 10 -- The People, No. 14, Part 11, 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), 112.

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