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colli.

Headword: 
colli.
Principal English Translation: 

grandfather, ancestor(s), forebear(s) (see Karttunen, Lockhart, and attestations; see also colli, meaning a bent, curling, or twisted thing; perhaps grandparents were thought of as bent over or they carried a cane with a bent handle? (see glyphs for the name Cocol in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs).

Orthographic Variants: 
culli
IPAspelling: 
koːlli
Frances Karttunen: 

CŌL-LI Pl: -TIN grandfather, ancestor / abuelo (S) This is rarely attested in nonpossessed form. The possessed plural is abundantly attested in B, always in reduplicated form, -COHCOLHUAN. Since reduplicated in plural formation involves long vowels rather than short vowel and glottal stop, the forms in B may be distributive. In X and in one attestation in B the reduplicated form has a singular sense and appears without the plural suffix.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 40.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

cōl-(li). totahhuān tocōlhuān, forebears, ancestors.
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), 215.

Attestations from sources in English: 

yn intlamanitiliz catca yn oc yehuantin tlateotocanime / yn tachtoncohcolhuan catca in maca çan tlayohuayan yn oc ce cahuitl ipan onemico. yc motlapololtiaya yn ayemo yuh impan huallacia yn itlanextzin yn iximachocatzin yn ineltococatzin tto jesu xp̄ō. yn iuh axcan ipan ye ticate yn iteycnelilizticatzinco yn itepalehuilizticatzinco in titlaneltocacatzitzinhuan = This was the custom of our early ancestors, who were still idolaters living in darkness in [those] other times. Such was their confusion before the light, knowledge, and faith of our Lord Jesus Christ had reached them as now, in our times, [these benefits reach] us believers through His grace and favor. (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. 2, 118–119.

Qualli culli, tenonotzani, teizcaliani, tealceceuia, tetzitzicazuia, teixtoma, tenacaztlapoa. = The good grandfather [is] an adviser, an indoctrinator. He repriamnds one, beats one with nettles, teaches one prudence, discretion. (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), 4.

Auh yn ipetl yn icpaltzin yn tlacatl yn tlatohuani señor don Alonso axayacatzin nocoltzin moyetzticatca = and as to the lord sir ruler señor don Alonso Axayacatzin, my late grandfather (Mexico City, 1587)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 32, 200–201.

nocol, nocoltzin = my grandfather
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

"8 Acatl 1590 Nican yalohuac chichimecapan yaque tococolhuan tlaxcalteca" = "8 Reed (year) 1590 Here in this year a group of our grandfathers, Tlaxcalan people, went to the land of the Chichimecs." (Anales de Tlaxcala, no. 1, 1453–1603)
Frances Krug, "The Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Region," ch. 4, pp. 27–28, Ph.D. Dissertation draft written in the 1980s, with transcriptions and translations approved by James Lockhart. Cited here by SW.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

nechmocahuililitaque ynotatzin ynonantzi yncoltzin ynosintzin = me fueron dejando mi padre y mi madre, mi abuelo y mi abuela (Acolma, 1581)
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), 240–241.

ce yolotl onictequipano nonecocol = [una parte] está con mazorca que la cultivé [con mi abuelo] (Santa Agueda Mixtetelco, sin fecha)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 206-207.

themes: 
Aging (People, Things)
Family, Kinship, Descent