cuica.

Headword: 
cuica.
Principal English Translation: 

to sing

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), 216.

to repeat, swear, state (see attestations)

IPAspelling: 
kwiːkɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

cuica. ni. (pret. onicuicac.) cantar el cantor, ochirriar las aues.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 26v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

CUĪCA to sing / cantar el cantor, o chirriar las aves (M)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 71.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

ni. Class 1. ōnicuīcac.
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), 216.

Attestations from sources in English: 

See an image that represents cuica in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

auh no yquac cuicuicaya. tlatlatzonaya. yn omotocateneuh huehue çaca yn ichan auh ynacaztitlan acic quicac yn moteuhcçomatzin ylhuicamina. quihto. tetlatlani. aquin cuica. auh nimā quilhuique ca yehuatl yn motechiuhcauh huehue çaca. = But also at that time the aforenamed Huehue Çaca continuously sang and beat drums in his home, and [the sound] reached Moteucçomatzin Ilhuicamina's ears; he heard it. He asked people: Who sings? And they said to him: It is your senior official, Huehue Çaca. (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, 94–95.

y vel omotlahlmacaque yn ipampa y capilla y vel cuycazque yn ayc y quicavazque = They were indeed given the land so that they will sing well in the choir and never cease (Coyoacan, mid-sixteenth century)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 18, 110–111.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

julamento quicuic = juramento hizo (Tlaxcala, 1562)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (Tlaxcala: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala y el Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 12.

yn cuicaque queuhque missa Ecelsis Santos Canpi 8 buosez yhuan tlayahualoque tienta quitocaque auh y lunes pisberas Circunçiçion tehuatin ticuicaque tindiotzintzin yhuan titlapizque = cantaron la misa Excelsis Santos Campi a 8 voces. Hicieron procesión por las tiendas. Y el, lunes, vísperas de la Circuncisión, cantamos nosotros los indios y nosotros los músicos (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala and México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 268–269.

themes: 
Music, Song, Dance