⚠ 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.

huahuana.

Headword: 
huahuana.
Principal English Translation: 

make stripes or striations in something; to scrape; or, to treat hides

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), 217.

Orthographic Variants: 
uahuana
IPAspelling: 
wɑwɑnɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

uauana. nitla. (pret. onitlauauan.) escaruar, o hazer rayas enla tierra, reglar papel, trazar o debuxar algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 155r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

HUAHUAN(A) vt to scratch, scrape something, to incise lines on something / escarbar o hacer rayas en la tierra, reglar papel, trazar o dibujar algo (M), lo raspa (T) Z has a long vowel in the second syllable and in one attestation has the reflex of a glottal stop at the end of the first syllable. X consistently has a long vowel in the second syllable, while T consistently has a short one. HUAHUANILIĀ applic. HUAHUAN(A) HUAHUANALŌ nonact. HUAHUAN(A)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 80.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nic. Class 2: ōnichuahuan. the second a may be long.
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), 217.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Olman oncan quipolloque yn chaneque catca yn olmeca oncan quincacalque quiuauanque yehuantin yn tlalpolloque yn icxicouatl yn quetzalteueyac yn tezcauitzil yn tololouitzin = Olman. Allí destruyeron a los habitantes, a los olmeca. Allí los sacrificaron por flechamiento, los "rayaron", ellos Icxicouatl, Quetzalteueyac, Tezcauitzil y Tololuitzin, conquistaron la tierra. (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 145.