moteca. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

moteca.

Principal English Translation:

to become established in a settlement
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 144.

to assemble; to pile on to each other
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

Alonso de Molina:

motecac. acostado, o tendido.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 060r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English:

From: tēca = to lay something down, to spread it out
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 57

auh iuhquj ommoteca, iuhquj ommotlaҫa = and in this manner he stretcheth out, in this manner he throweth himself down (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), 8.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Auh niman ya yaui omotecato amoltepa = Y luego ya se fueron a establecer en Amoltepan (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 140.Niman ya uitze omotecaco = Luego ya vienen a establecerse [y luego una lista de lugares] (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)

Niman ya uitze omotecaco ueycan tamallac Toxpallatl yyonocan = Luego ya vienen a establecerse en: Ueycan tamallac, Toxpalatl yyonocan.
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 144.

yeica ipampa catiazque titotecatihui titotlallitihui, ihuan tiquinpehuatihui, inipan huey cemanahuatl onoque in macehualtin = porque nos iremos a establecer, a radicar, y conquistaremos a los naturales que están establecidos en el universo; [porque pues iremos, nos iremos a colocar, nos iremos a asentar, e iremos a conquistar a quienes están establecidos en el grande universo] (centro de Mexico, s. XVII)
Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, Crónica mexicayotl; traducción directa del náhuatl por Adrián León (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 24.
niman ya uitze omotecaco = Luego ya vienen a establecerse (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)

themes:

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods