⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

chicuatototl.

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analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.