chicuatototl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

chicuatototl.

Principal English Translation:

Eastern Meadowlark (?) (see Hunn, attestations); or, a bird that resembles a barn owl (see Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants:

chīcuahtōtōtl

IPAspelling:

tʃiːkwɑhtoːtoːtɬ

Frances Karttunen:

CHĪCUAHTŌTŌ-TL a bird that resembles a barn owl / cierta ave semejante a la lechuza (R) [(1)Rp.74]. See CHĪCUAH-TLI, TŌTŌ-TL.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 50.

Attestations from sources in English:

CHĪCUA-TŌTŌ-TL, literally, “Barn Owl bird,” Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) [FC: 47 Chiquâtototl] “The bill is pointed, the breast yellow. Its back, wings, tail are ashen, blotched like a quail, as well as its head” Martin del Campo identified this as the Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna). I agree that this seems the best solution.
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 11 – Earthly Things, no. 14, Part XII, 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, 1963); Rafael Martín del Campo, “Ensayo de interpretación del Libro Undecimo de la Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún – 11 Las Aves (1),” Anales del Instituto de Biología Tomo XI, Núm. 1 (México, D.F., 1940); and, with quotation selections, synthesis, and analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.

themes:

Animals, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, Fish, etc.