huehuetl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

huehuetl.

Principal English Translation:

drum, especially an indigenous upright cylindrical drum with a deerskin top and sometimes decorated with feathers; also, a very wide cypress tree that could be a visual reminder of the wide drum; finally, Huehuetl (or Huehuetzin, in the honorific version), was a personal name (attested as male) and the name of an important figure in the early days of Tollan, mentioned in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.
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), 218. See also: Dana Leibsohn, Script and Glyph: Pre-Hispanic History, Colonial Bookmaking and the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2009), 29.

Orthographic Variants:

vevetl, veuetl, huēhuētl, ueuetl

IPAspelling:

weːweːtɬ

Alonso de Molina:

ueuetl. atabal.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 157r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

HUĒHUĒ-TL possessed form: -HUĒ-HUĒUH upright drum / atabal (M)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 85.

Attestations from sources in English:

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

Qujtitlantivi in vevetl, in aiacachtli, cujcanjme catca, qujpiquja, qujçaloaia, qujlnamjquja, qujioltevujaia in cujcatl: maviztic in qujpiquja. = They [the Tolteca] went about using the ground drum, the rattle stick. They were singers; they composed, originated, knew from memory, invented the wonderful songs which they composed. (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), 169.

veuetl in qujtzotzona, aiacachotoque, aiacachquetztoque, aiotl qujtzotzona, aioujtectoque, aiochiuhtoque = they beat the upright drums; they sat beating gourd rattles; they sat rattling gourd rattles and beating turtle shells
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 72.

auh in tlamamalli xoxouhquj veuetl in colotli tlachiuhtli coztic teucujtlaio = And as a burden for his back [he had] a blue skin drum fashioned on a frame, and [ornamented] with gold. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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, 1951), 33.

veuetl in colotli tlachiuhtli, coztic teucujtlaio: = the skin drum upon a carrying frame, and decorated with gold. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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, 1951), 33.

vevetl ayacachtli = upright drums; gourd rattles
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 210.

in anoço teponaztli in anoço vevetl = log drums, or cylindrical drums.
(Mexico City, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 186.

tlā çā yé pēhua in huēhuētl = just let the drum begin (Central Mexico, 1570–80)
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), 197.

Taueuetl, in tipochotl motlan moceoualhuiz, in maceoalli = You are a great cypress and ceiba: under you the people shall have cover, they shall have shade.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 160–161.

vevetl vmozivhavhtica hoquicavh yn iciuhavh = ...Huehuetl. He had married. He left his wife.... (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 120–121. See another example on 136–137 and one on 162–163.

tla xonahuia huehuetitlan xonmiquani = enjoy yourself, move over next to the drum (suggesting a possible alternate translation of a passage from the Cantares Mexicanos, Bierhorst, 248–49, verse 18)
James Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards: Postconquest Central Mexican History and Philology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 147.

auh ac colinjz ac qujiolitiz in vevetl, in aiacachtli, in vncan molnamjquj, in vncan moiocoia in teuatl, in tlachinolli = And who will move, who will put life into the drum, the gourd rattle where war is recalled (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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), 23.

xicolinj xiciocoia in avillotl, in vevetl, in aiacachtli = Agitate, attend to the auillotl, the drum, the gourd rattle (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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), 53.

xicmocujtlavi in vevetl, in aiacachtli yn ijxitiloca in atl, in tepetl = Care for the drum, for the gourd rattle which are the means of awakening the city (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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), 74.

Huehuetzin was the name of a Nonoalca Chichimeca who settled in Tula with three other Nonoalcas and four Tolteca Chichimecas, according to the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca or Anales de Cuauhtinchan. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Literaturas de Anahuac y del Incario / Literatures of Anahuac and the Inca, ed. Miguel León-Portilla (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editories, 2006), 192.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

tlaya[sic] clarin nima chirimias nima teocalticpac motzotzona huelhuetl yhuan tetepitzintzin marselos = al frente iba el clarín, luego las chirimías, luego encima de los templos se tocaban los huehuetl y maceros pequeños (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), 546–547.

Yhuan ce quetzalhuehuetl = Y una guitarra [sic?] de pluma (Xochimilco, 1650)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 248–249.

Ontetl teponaztli no ontetl huehuetl no ontetl tlalpanhuehuetl = Dos teponastlis, dos guitarrasm[sic?],[sic] dos capotes (Tetepango, Hidalgo, 1586)
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 (México: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 264–265.

yn quauhtecomatl yhuan yn chalchihuitl yhuan xihuitl xelihuic monamacaz yn ipatiuh huentli mochihuaz yhuan ontetl huehuetl teponaztli = el tecomate de palo y los chalchihuites, y también donde se asentaban los años, se ha de partir y se ha de vender y el valor de ello es para limosna; y dos teponastlis (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 (México: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 212–213.

yhuan ce tlalpanhuehuetl huey yhuan xicalteconhuehuetl = y un teponastli grande que llaman guitarra [sic?] de la tierra, y también un teponastli que llaman sicalgegel
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 242–243.

hue:huet = huehuetl
Pedro tapi:tza naja nic tzutzu:na ni hue:huet. = Pedro toca el pito y yo el tambor.
Niguixma:ti, mijtoti:gan temi:qui nu hue:huet. = Amigo, bailemos al son del tambor. (Sonsonate, El Salvador, Nahuat or Pipil, s. XX)
Tirso Canales, Nahuat (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, Editorial Universitaria, 1996), 15–16.

yuan y nonoualca chichimeca yn xelhuan yn ueuetzin yn quauhtzin yn citlalmacuetzin = junto con los nonoualca chichimeca: Xelhuan, Ueuetzin, Quauhtzin, Citlalmacuetzin (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 133.

auh yn iquac omiqui yn uemac niman ya yc yaui yn tollan yn nonouallca yn xelhuan yn ueuetzin yn icxicouatl yn quetzalteueyac = Y cuando murió Uemac luego ya se van a Tollan los nonoualca Xelhuan y Ueuetzin [y los tolteca] Icsicouatl y Quetzalteueyac. (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 135.

themes:

Feathers

Music, Song, Dance