quechquemitl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

quechquemitl.

Principal English Translation:

a neck garment; a blouse, worn by indigenous women, made from two rectangles joined to form a V neck (see attestations); it is pulled on over the head and falls to a point in front and back (see Karttunen)

IPAspelling:

ketʃkeːmitɬ

Alonso de Molina:

quechquemitl. papahigo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 88v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

papahigo. quechquemitl. otlica tlatquitl. neixquimiloloni.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 1, Spanish to Nahuatl, 92r.

Frances Karttunen:

QUECHQUĒM(I)-TL an indigenous Mesoamerican garment consisting of a cloth with a neck hole cut in the center; it is pulled on over the head and usually falls to a point in front and back. This literally means 'neck-garment.' / papahigo (M), rebozo (T), huipil, bufanda (Z) [(1)Tp.177,(3)Zp.21,69,184]. None of the glosses cited conveys a true sense of QUECH-QUĒM(I)-TL. See QUECH-TLI, QUĒM(I)-TL.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 207.

Attestations from sources in English:

According to Anawalt, among the Aztec pictorials the quechquemitl is seen only in ritual contexts and hence was a special-purpose clothing that originated in the Gulf Coast region, where it was and still is a typical female garment. Thus its presence in the Aztec costume repertory would reflect the earlier adoption of religious concepts from the Gulf Coast region and carried connotations of fertility (Anawalt 1981:35–37, 212).
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), 102–103.

themes:

Textiles, Clothing