to defend oneself or to put up resistance (see Molina and Karttunen)
IPAspelling:
mɑːpɑːtɬɑ
Alonso de Molina:
mapatla. nino. (pret. oninomapatlac.) defenderse, o resistir. Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.
Frances Karttunen:
MĀPĀTLA vrefl,vt to defend oneself, to put up resistance; to beat something with one’s hand, to mix something by hand / defenderse o resistir (M), lo bate con la mano, lo revuelve con la mano (T) [(3)Tp. 191]. See MĀ(I)-TL, PĀTLA.
MĀPĀTLALŌ nonact. MĀPĀTLA Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 137.