mictia.

Headword:

mictia.

Principal English Translation:

to kill, or to beat or mistreat (literally, to make someone die)

The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala (1545-1627), eds. James Lockhart, Frances Berdan, and Arthur J.O. Anderson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), 105.

IPAspelling:

miktiɑː

Alonso de Molina:

mictia. nino. (pret. oninomicti.) matar, o maltratar asi mismo, o escoger lo mejor.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mictia. ninonoma. (pret. oninonomamicti.) matar assi mismo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mictia. nite. (pret. onitemicti.) matar, o maltratar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mictia. nitla. (pret. onitlamicti.) ser impotente para engendrar, o sacrificar ante los idolos matando algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

MICTIĀ vrefl,vt to commit suicide, to mistreat oneself; to kill or injure someone / matar o maltratar a sí mismo (M), matar o maltratar a otro (M) M provides additional glosses of ‘to be unable to procreate’ and ‘to engage in blood sacrifice’ for this with the object prefix TLA-. M also has an opaque gloss of the reflexive as ‘to choose the best. alter. caus. MIQU(I) MICTILIĀ applic. MICTIĀ MICTĪLŌ nonact. MICTIĀ
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 146.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

nic. to kill, to beat. Class 3: ōnicmictih. causative of miqui.
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), 225.

Attestations from sources in English:

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

Context is required to determine which meaning is intended, to kill or to beat. And see Molina's various definitions, below. (SW)

Ōniquimommicti in māmaltin = I've had them killed (made them die through the agency of someone else)
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 199.

auh yn iqc ye quimictizquia yn iyaovan = it was when his enemies would have killed him
Fray Alonso de Molina, Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: The 1552 Nahuatl Ordinances of fray Alonso de Molina, OFM, ed. and trans., Barry D. Sell (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002), 124–125.

quimicti. yn oncan teotlachco. quiquechcoton. oncan quiqua yehuatl yn iyollo in coyolxauhcihuatl quiqua yn huitzilopochtli = he killed her in the sacred ball court; he cut off her head (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 82–83.

ca miequintin in tlapictli quitzacutiaque in ixpopoiomictiloque = They punished many for invented things, who were treacherously killed (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), 142.

niman vncā quinmictia, vncan quintlatlatia, aço quincuexcochvitequi anoço quintetepachoa = then they killed them there, they disposed of them, by striking them on the nape of the neck or stoning them.
(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), 140.

auh yn se teopixqui yn iquac oquimochihuiliyaya sermon san huel omixtetlatlatziniaya san huel omomictiaya niman mosotlahualtiaya ytec yn pulpit = and one friar, as he was delivering the sermon, would give himself blows in the face; he was really beating himself up. Then he fainted in the pulpit.
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 128–129.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Tlempanoc: Ipan ni 21 tonatiuh zan tlen 1920 ipan México quimictihqueh Venustiano Carranza (Tlayecanquetl tlen Revolución mexicanah ipan 1910). = Pasado: El día 21 pero de 1920 en México asesinan a Venustiano Carranza (líder de la Revolución mexicana de 1910).
Victoriano Cruz de la Cruz, Nahuatlahtolli, 21 Mayo 2013. Náhuatl moderno de la Huasteca del Este.

themes:

Crime, Punishment

Death

War, Conflict

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