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.