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Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
a grasshopper; or, a locust (see Molina and Karttunen)
See an image that represents chapolin in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
"Chapulín," which was how chapolin entered Spanish as a loanword, was a term used in the late seventeenth century to describe leaders of a riot involving the burning of the Royal Palace in 1692. One witness referred to the "Ratones y Chapulines."
chapullin = grasshopper
ahuaca chapullin = locust
Frances Krug quotes three different sets of annals that all discuss a problem with locusts (called variously chachapolti and chapolme) in the years 1556, 1557, and 1558.
Yej Icya Quitaqueh Totajhuehuejmej: Chapolin (Lo que vieron hace muchos años los abuelos: los chapulines). "En una época anterior a la nuestra una viejita menesterosa fue a pedirle maíz a su hijo. El hijo se lo negó y todos los granos de su maíz se volvieron chapulines y se comieron al hombre. (Este relato también podría haberse colocado bajo los ejemplos morales ya que predica contra la tacañería)." (Escuchado en Mecayapan, Ver. Hernández, 1974, 1-10.)
ipan Çe Tochin, 1558 años, tlachapolcualoc = En el [año] 1 Tochtli, 1558, hubo plaga de chapulines (Mexico City, c. 1572)
Chapollin ó chapullin-chapulin o saltamontes.
"El nombre correcto mexicano [de un pueblo] es Chapulapan, que se compone de chapullin, langosta, de atl, agua, y de pan, en."