chinamitl.

Headword: 
chinamitl.
Principal English Translation: 

a reed or cane fence or enclosure; a wall; a subunit of an altepetl; a chinampa (raised lakebed garden) or agricultural strip
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), 214.

Orthographic Variants: 
chinampa, chinamit, and see the loanword(?) tinamit in K'iché texts
IPAspelling: 
tʃinɑːmitɬ
Alonso de Molina: 

chinamitl. seto o cerca de cañas. Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 21r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

"CHINĀM(I)-TL fence of cane or cornstalks, an area so enclosed, or the canes or stalks themselves / seto o cerca de cañas (M), cañuela de maiz, chinámil (T) Z has the variant CHINĀN-TLI with the sense ‘pyramid,’ while X has it with the sense ‘hovel.’ It also is a term of social organization referring to a unit closely equivalent to a calpolli/calpulli. The sense all share to some degree is ‘enclosure.’"
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 52.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

chināmitl = chinampa Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 500.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

chinampa (strip of built-up earth in shallow water for intensive cultivation); an enclosure of cane or other materials; a sub-unit of an altepetl 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), 214.

Attestations from sources in English: 

CHINAMITL AS CHINAMPA / AGRICULTURAL USAGE

nochina yn ōpa temi tecuitlaapa matlactetl çecenpohualhuiyac = there are 10 chinampas of mine in Tecuitlaapan, each one 20 [units of measurement] long (Culhuacan, 1580)
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), 192.

auh yn chinamitl [29v] yc omotamachiuh nauhtetl Cenpohuali yhuan chiCuey baras yhua Centetl Caltontli antle quipien Puerta tonati ycalaquianpa ynic on[mo]tamachiuh nahui bara yhuan tlacon ynic huiyac yey baras yhuan tl[a]Con ynic patlahuac = and the four chinampas [f. 29v] were measured at 28 varas, and a little house that has no door, toward the west, was measured at 4 1/2 varas in length and 3 1/2 varas in width. (1655, Mexico City)
Jonathan Truitt, Sustaining the Divine in Mexico Tenochtitlan: Nahuas and Catholicism, 1523–1700 (Oceanside, CA: The Academy of American Franciscan History; Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018), 246, 251.

oncan yc ye mochinantia oncan quitocaque yn tlaolli y huauhtli. yn etl. yn ayotli. yn chilchotl. yn xitomatl = There they made reed fences for themselves; there they planted corn, amaranth, beans, squash, green chilis, and tomatoes. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 84–85.

iatentlallo = its land at the edge of the water -- This was sometimes a set of chinampas designated to go along with a house in sixteenth-century Culhuacan testaments.
Sarah Cline, "The Book of Tributes: The Cuernavaca-region Censuses," in James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds., Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, Preliminary Version (e-book) (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Project, 2007.

A chinampa or so-called "floating" garden did not really float but was built up on a lake bed or shore using mud from the bottom of the water; often held and/or sold/given in groups of 7, esp. in Culhuacan. (S. Cline); in southern Mexico and Guatemala, chinamitl = subdivision of a town.
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

One wonders whether the structures that supported the built-up mud of the chinampas are partly what explains the relationship between these two definitions: agricultural strip and fence enclosure. See the hieroglyph for chinamitl from the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 503 recto, which appears to be a fence. And another glyphic example verges toward the agricultural structure: Tierras v. 1735, exp. 2, f. 109. In this public domain photo of a contemporary chinampa, one can see the edge along the water is now supported with substantial wooden posts. In this glyph for Chinantlan, the agricultural use is clear. (Stephanie Wood, Editor)

CHINAMITL AS SOCIO-POLITICAL UNIT

"In much of Mesoamerica, and especially in the southern part, the term 'chinamitl' was a rough equivalent of 'calpulli' and 'tlaxilacalli." Chimalpahin seldom uses the term. Most instances seem to refer to actual chinampas." (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Susan Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991), 152.

chinamitl = small calpulli, or settlement/house cluster, ranging in size from 32 households to only one (citing Carrasco's study of the Morelos census documents, an ethnohistorical record); in the archaeological record studied by Smith, however, mean sizes of 14 households (for Molotla) and 17 (for Tepetenchicalcan) were found for what he believes to be chinamitl. Michael E. Smith, Archaeological Research at Aztec-Period Rural Sites in Morelos, Mexico, Volume 1: Excavations and Architecture (1992), 355.

chinamitl = "are always divisions of a larger calpolli;" "spatially clustered territorial units;" mean sizes are 12 and 17 households
The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities, eds. M. Charlotte Arnauld, Linda R. Manzanilla, and Michael E. Smith (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012), 6.

nochinamil yeztepel = my chinamitl (barrio or small outlying settlement) of Iztepec; chinamitl = "literally 'fence' but often the rough equivalent of calpolli in the southern Nahua-speaking region;" Iztepec was also a chinamitl of Yanhuitlan and its subunits were called siña Kevin Terraciano, The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca: Ñudzahui History, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 112.

CHINAMITL AS A ROOM FOR DANCING?

chinamitl = 1) fence, wall (from Molina); 2) enclosure (see Molina, "cerca assi"); 3) a room or area for dancing and singing (Bierhorst)
John Bierhorst, A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), 82.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

CHINAMITL Y USOS AGRICOLAS

epantli chinamitl = tres hileras de camellones (Xochimilco, 1582)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 246–247.

niconmaquilia chicompantli yn chinamitl Tlillapan ypan manique tequitque = le doy siete camellones en el pago llamado Tlilapa, que los tengo dados a los indios (Xochimilco, 1577
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 210–211.

onicmacac tlalli chinamitl yoan cuezcomatl... chinamitl yoan cuescomatl = le tengo dado de tierras y troje... las dichas tierras, camellones y troje (Xochimilco, 1572)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 162–163.

onpantli chinamitl yn opa temi Tlaçoloztoc cecenpohual cuemitl mamacuilte patlahuac ye Mexicopa itçtitemi = dos camellones que están e son en Tlazaloztoc, de cada veinte brazas en largo y cinco de ancho, que enderezan hacia México (San Juan Teotihuacan, 1563)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 146–147.

Auh yn Tolla napohualli chinamitl cenpohualli petlahuatoc nicmacatiuh ynonamic = En Tulan tengo ochenta camellones, los veinte camellones están labrados, todos los dichos camellones sean para mi mujer. (San Juan Moyotlan, D.F., 1551)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 90–91.

chimamitl = camellón: yuan centetl in chinamitl ynic motamachiua macuilmatl yhuan ce mitl = un camellon que medido tiene cinco brazas y media (Ciudad de México, 1564)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 111.

cempouali pesos yuan matlactli pesos yuan 1 pesos yn ipatiuh in cali in tlali in chinamitl ynic otoyolopachiuh = los treynta e un pesos precio de las casas [tierras e camellones lo qual vendimos de nuestra voluntad) (Ciudad de México, s. XVI)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 113.

auh onmanca in xacal centetl yhuan chinamitl = tenía sus xacales hechos e que tenya unos camellones (Ciudad de México, s. XVI)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 244.

napohualli chinamitl cenpohualli petlahuatoc = tengo ochenta [brazas de] camellones los veynte [brazas de] camellones están labradas (Tenochtitlan, 1551)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 92.

auh yn atl yn chinamitl mochiua macuilmatl ynic patlahuac caxtolmatl omome ynic huiyac yn oncan chinanquac home estacas omomaman ce otlica = y lo que está en camellones y agua tiene cinco brazas de ancho y de largo dies y siete brazas e ansí hincamos sobre los camellones dos estacas y otra en la entrada y camino (Ciudad de México, 1570)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 136.

Auh yn chinamitl yetetl ynic huehueyac matlatlacmatl = Y los chinamitl que son tres miden de largo diez brazas (Ciudad de Mexico, 1557)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 173.

CHINAMITL COMO UNIDAD SOCIO-POLITICO

Tlasumaguis señor capitan Don. Andres de Zarate alcalde mayor visitador general nican tu chinamit = Amado y respetable señor Capitán Don Andrés de Zarate Alcalde Mayor visitador General aquí en nuestro pueblo (Quechula, Chiapas; 1674; pueblo zoque)
Karen Dakin, "Algunos documentos nahuas del sur de Mesoamérica," Visiones del encuentro de dos mundos en América: lengua, cultura, traducción y transculturación, eds. Karen Dakin, Mercedes Montes de Oca, y Claudia Parodi (México: UNAM, 2009), 253.

chinamit = pueblo (Guatemala, 1637, documento en pipil)
Miguel León-Portilla, "Un Texto en Nahua Pipil de Guatemala, Siglo XVII," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 13 (1978), 35–47, y ver 44–45.

CHINAMITL COMO CERCA

chinamitl = tejido de cañas ó de varas; seto ó cercado de cañas; chinamil
Cecilio Agustín Robelo, Diccionario de aztequismos: ó sea, catálogo de las palabras del idioma Náhuatl, Azteca ó Mexicano, introducidas al idioma Castellano bajo diversas formas (1904), 179.

chinamitl = cerca de cañas; chinampan = en/sobre la cerca de cañas
Thelma Sullivan, Compendio de la gramática náhuatl, 4a. edición (México: UNAM, 1998), 139.

themes: 
Agriculture, Gardens, Stockraising
Architecture, Construction, Buildings
Land Tenure
Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods