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.

tlatzacuiltia.

Headword: 
tlatzacuiltia.
Principal English Translation: 

to punish someone or bring someone to justice (see Molina and Karttunen)

IPAspelling: 
tɬɑtsɑkwiltiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

tlatzacuiltia. nite. (pret. onitetlatzacuilti.) castigar o justiciar a alguno.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 142v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TLATZACUILTIĀ to punish someone / castigar o justiciar a alguno (M) [(4)Cf.45r,62v,90v,113r]. caus. TLATZACU(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 300.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Auh vmpa cemicac vey temamauhti ynic quinmotlazacuiltiliz yn diablosme = there He will eternally punish the devils in a very frightening manner.
Fray Alonso de Molina, Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: The 1552 Nahuatl Ordinances of fray Alonso de Molina, OFM, ed. and trans., Barry D. Sell (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002), 98–99.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

no tlatzacuitilozque ihuan quichihuazque in cohuatequitl = también serán castigados y harán el couatequitl
(México, 1593)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 317.

themes: 
Crime, Punishment