⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

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

nehuitzantli.

Headword: 
nehuitzantli.
Principal English Translation: 

a measurement, from the foot to the hand

Orthographic Variants: 
nehuitzan, nehuitçā; see also nehuitzanalli and see attestations for the source of the definition
Attestations from sources in English: 

In a document from Xochimilco from the year 1568, Lockhart found the use of nehuitçā three times. In the surrounding documentation it was called a braza (explained as being "de las que se miden del pie a la mano") and a vara ("varas de las antiguas"). James Lockhart collection, notes in the file "Land and Economy." For this example he cites AGN (Mexico) Tierras, vol. 1525, exp. 5, ff. 5, 6, and 28.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

yc hueyac castolpohuali oce yuan matlactloce nehuitzantli = de largo trecientas y treinta y una brazadas del pie a la mano (en un documento de Quiauiztlan, de 1609) Luis Reyes García, La escritura pictográfica en Tlaxcala: Dos mil años de experiencia mesoamericana (Tlaxcala, Tlax., Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1993), 201.

themes: 
Measurements, Quantities