malacatl.

Neanonj, mecamaxalli, quatzontli, xiiotl, otlatl, tzotzopaztli cacalaca, patlaoac: tzotzopaztli pitzaoac, omjtzotzopaztli, tzotzopaztepiton, ic tlamachioa:teçacatl, tlaujteconj, malacatl, tzaoalcaxitl = [Theirs were] the device with which [the loom] was held; the divided cord; the skein; the shuttle; the cane stalks; the wide batten, which swished [as it was used]; the thin batten, one made of bone; the small batten with which they worked designs; the heddle; the flail; the spindle whorl; the spinning bowl (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), 49.

malacachiuhqui in itequiuh centomi = The spindle makers' tax is 1 tomín (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. 25, 140–141.

The term was also used to refer to various kinds of round object, such as the malacaquetzalli, a quetzal feather headpiece, or temalacatl, stone wheel (a gladiator stone in prehispanic times and a mill stone during the Spanish colonial period).
Justyna Olko, Turquoise Diadems and Staffs of Office: Elite Costume and Insignia of Power in Aztec and Early Colonial Mexico (Warsaw: Polish Society for Latin American Studies and Centre for Studies on the Classical Tradition, University of Warsaw, 2005), 158.

aço ytlacavi in içivatequivh ym moteneva y malacatl ŷ tzotzopaztli = perhaps the womanly work, what is called the spindle whorl, the batten, was done badly (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 230.

Zazan tleino, zan cemilhuitl otzti. Malacatl. What is it that in one day only becomes big with child? A spindle. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 135–136.

Zazan tleino, i(n) neitotiayan quititique, cotztique. Ca malacatl. = What is in the dancing place getting pot-bellied and kicking its legs? The spindle. (The distaff was sometimes set in a clay vessel and thus danced around when the thread was being spun.) (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 135–136.

tlein qujtta in ma yuh cioatioa, cujx vel malacatl, cujx vel tzotzopaztli: Ca anommati in njxco, in nocpac, auh ca avel cententli, cencamatl njcqujxtia, in jhijotl, in tlatolli = What do they see [in me]? It is as if a woman is acquired, perhaps capable of womanly skills; for I am an imbecile, and I cannot bring forth a word or two of discourse (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), 61.

chiuhcnauh mallacatl = nueve malacates
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 164–165.