⚠ 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.

papalotl.

Headword: 
papalotl.
Principal English Translation: 

a butterfly (see Molina and Karttunen); also, a person's name (attested as male and possibly female)

Orthographic Variants: 
papalutl, Papallotl
IPAspelling: 
pɑːpɑːloːtɬ
Alonso de Molina: 

papalotl. mariposa.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 79v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

PĀPĀLŌ-TL pl: -MEH butterfly / mariposa (M).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 187.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

motlepapalochihua = consume themselves like moths in a flame; and see: Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Notlepapalochiuhtiuh [sic] = I fly into the fire like a moth/butterfly (central Mexico, 1634)
Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 27.

yolcame papalome = insects and butterflies
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 11.

papalotilmahtli = the cape with the butterfly design
Justyna Olko, Turquoise Diadems and Staffs of Office: Elite Costume and Insignia of Power in Aztec and Early Colonial Mexico (Warsaw: Polish Society for Latin American Studies and Centre for Studies on the Classical Tradition, University of Warsaw, 2005), 196.

y yamatzon, ioã itzpapalutl, itech ca = his paper crown, and on it obsidian butterflies
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 99.

Zazan tleino, tepetozcatl quitoca momamatlaxcalotiuh. Papalotl. = What is it that goes along the foothills of the mountain patting out tortillas with its hands? A butterfly.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 135–136.

ytoca papallotl = named Papalotl [he is married to a woman named Tlaco] (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 164–165.

chimalpapalocalli = House of Butterfly Shields (late sixteenth century, Tetzcoco?)
Ballads of the Lords of New Spain: The Codex Romances de los Señores de la Nueva España, transcribed and translated by John Bierhorst (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 33.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

quahpatla[n]que yn atzaqualca yn ipa[n] quahpatla[n]que o[n]tetl tlauhquechol ce[n]tetl papalotl ce[n]tetl xillanehuatl = los atzaqualcas volaron en el palo volador. Volaron como dos tlauhquechol, una mariposa y un xillanehuatl. (ca. 1582, Mexico City)
Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 184–185.

papalotl in amo mocuatequia = Papalotl (mariposa), tampoco está bautizada (ca. 1540, Cuernavaca)
Ismael Díaz Cadena, "Libro de tributos del Marquesado del Valle. Texto en español y náhuatl," Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Cuadernos de la Biblioteca, Serie Investigación no. 5, pp. 13, 52.

yq[ua]c meuh papalocuicatl yc q'[ui]z yn ilhuitzin Sant Juan yquac yecauhque papalome yva[n] ocelome = entonces se interpretó el papalocuicatl, con esto se hizo la fiesta de San Juan, entonces se terminaron las mariposas y los ocelotes (ca. 1582, México)
Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (México: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 148–149.