Principal English Translation:
[quail] were beheaded, decapitated
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 70.
Attestations from sources in English:
yoan tlacotonalo ixqujch tlacatl, yn cioatl in toqujchti = and quail were beheaded by everyone, women and men... [Note: The meaning of quail seems implied. In the next line we see the object of the beheadings clarified to be zolin (çolin). Following that, we see tlacotona.]
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 70.
qujtlacotonjlia [quitlacotonilia] = he slew quail [Again, the quail are implied, not specifically named in the sentence.] (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 1 -- The Gods; No. 14, Part 2, 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, 1950), 7.