tonacayotl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

tonacayotl.

Principal English Translation:

"fruits of the land," maize, produce; food products that grow in the sun, such as maize; sustenance (see attestations)

IPAspelling:

toːnɑkɑːyoːtɬ

Alonso de Molina:

tonacayotl. mantenimiento humano, o los fructos dela tierra.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 149r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

TŌNACĀYŌ-TL produce, human sustenance, one's daily nourishment / mantenimiento humano o los frutos de la tierra (M) [(1)Bf.Iv,(1)Cf.1231]. This often specifically refers to maize. It contrasts with TONACAYŌ 'our flesh,' the first person plural inalienably possessed form of NAC(A)-TL 'flesh.' See TŌNA, -YŌ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 245.

Attestations from sources in English:

yn chinanpa onoc yn tonacayotl = what is planted on the chinanpas (Culhuacan, 1580)
Testaments of Culhuacan (provisionally modified first edition), eds. Sarah Cline and Miguel León-Portilla, online version http://www.history.ucsb.edu/cline/testaments_of_culhuacan.pdf, 16.

yn onicnochihuilli yn imilco onoc y nonantzin yn tonacayotl yhuan hetzintli yhuan metzintli = what I planted, the maize, the beans, and the magueyes that are on the field of my mother (Culhuacan, 1580)
Testaments of Culhuacan (provisionally modified first edition), eds. Sarah Cline and Miguel León-Portilla, online version http://www.history.ucsb.edu/cline/testaments_of_culhuacan.pdf, 17.

yn cana quihualcauhtiaque Toctli miyahua [90 verso] ti, auh yn cana quihualcauhtehuaque Tonacayotl xilloti coçahuia, auh yn cana oc quipixcaya quilhualquatehuaya yn tonacayotl = in some places they abandoned young corn plants in flower, and in some places they suddenly abandoned corn starting to form ears, and yet in some [other] places they harvested and quickly ate the corn.
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 186–187.

Toyomotlan, tonacaztitech mopipiloa in totecuyo. Inin tlatolli, itechpa mitoaya: in iquac itla topan quimuchiuilia totecuyo: azo cetl quiqua in tonacayotl, azo mayanaliztli. = Our Lord is pinching our ribs and pulling our ears. This was said when our Lord caused some such thing to befall us as a frost which ravaged the crops, or a famine.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 172–173.yoan mjtoa, ca in iehoatl chicome coatl, ca qujchioa yn ixqujch tonacaiutl = And it is said, it is this Chicome coatl who maketh all our food (16th century, Mexico City)
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), 62.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

chiyahuizçohuac tonacayotl ca yhuan nenexme quiquaque amo tle mochiuh = al maíz le cayó chahuistle y se lo comieron los gusanos, no se produjo nada (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 148–149.

themes:

Corn, Maize

Food, Eating, Cooking