Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

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

teotlacualli.

Headword: 
teotlacualli.
Principal English Translation: 

spiritual or divine food (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
teotlaqualli
Alonso de Molina: 

teotlaqualli. comida spiritual o diuina.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 101v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

"teotlacualli or 'food of god' (comida divina), this potent mixture was edible and offered to the gods to eat, just as deity images were dripped with and fed liquid rubber."
Dana Leibsohn and Jeanette Favrot Peterson, Seeing Across Cultures in the Early Modern World, 2012, 62.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

"teotlacualli, 'comida divina' y la utilizaban los sacerdotes para protegerse contra todos los males"
Barbro Dahlgren de Jordán, Historia de la religión en Mesoamérica y áreas afines, 1987, 84.