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petlacalli.

Headword: 
petlacalli.
Principal English Translation: 

a deep basket with a cover, in which things were stored, a woven wicker hamper (see Karttunen and Molina); a box; a chest; or, a cage

Orthographic Variants: 
petlacali
IPAspelling: 
petɬɑːkɑlli
Alonso de Molina: 

petlacalli. petaca amanera de arca que hazen de cañas texidas.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 81r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

PETLĀCAL-LI woven wicker hamper / petaca a manera de arca que hacen de cañas tejidas (M) [(2)Bf.7r,9r,(1)Cf.113v]. The vowel of the second syllable is marked long in all attestations. Possibly this is a compound of PETL(A)-TL 'woven mat' and ĀCAL-LI 'boat'< Ā-TL 'water' and CAL-LI 'structure' and partially analogous to CUAUHCAL-LI 'cage.'
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 192.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

petlacalli = box, cage ('mat house')
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 169.

Toptli, petlacalli. Inin tlatolli itech mitoaya: in aquin uel quipia in ichtacatlatolli, piallatolli = A basket, a coffer. These words were said about someone who could keep a secret, who was close-mouthed.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 150–151.

anoҫo tecomjc, tecaxic, tetopco, tepetlacalco timaiaviz: tocontzacutiaz, tontetzotzonaloz = Or when thou wilt remove from one's olla, one's bowl, one's coffer, one's reed chest, thou wilt be imprisoned, thou wilt be stoned (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), 70.

mjxpan tlapovi in toptli, petlacalli = Before thee openeth the coffer, the reed chest (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), 80.

njcan otocontlapoque in toptli, in petlacalli, ovalqujz, ovalchaiaoac = Here we have opened the coffer, the reed chest. The incomparable hath come forth, hath spread out (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), 191.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

onpetlacali copalli = dos cofres de copal [con un valor de 15 pesos] (Tlaxcala, [1566] 1600)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en náhuatl, siglo XVII, Serie Administrativa (1600–1699), vol. II (Tlaxcala: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala y el Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 1.

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