Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

mamali.

Headword: 
mamali.
Principal English Translation: 

to drill or sweep something, or to split or insert oneself among many people (see Molina); also, to inaugurate

IPAspelling: 
mɑmɑli
Alonso de Molina: 

mamali. tetlan nino. (pret. tetlan oninomamal.) hender, o meterse entre mucha gente.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mamali. nitla. (pret. onitlamamal.) taladrar, o barrenar algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

.iii. tochtl. xiuitl. Inic momamal yn iteocaltzin ȳ sanct juº bapᵗª. / yvā ōcā tiçacamoq̄ otlamaxallco = Three Rabbit year. At this time the church of San Juan Bautista was inaugurated. And we cleared ground for cultivation at Otlamaxalco.
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), 284–285.