topilli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

topilli.

Principal English Translation:

a rod, wand, scepter, or staff of office (see also topile, one who holds the staff, a constable) (see Molina and Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants:

topili

IPAspelling:

toːpiːlli

Alonso de Molina:

topilli. bordon, hasta de lança (lanza), o vara dejusticia.
topile. alguazil.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, f. 150r.

Frances Karttunen:

TŌPĪL-LI staff of office, shaft / bordón, hasta de lanza, o vara de justicia (M).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 247.

Attestations from sources in English:

See an image that represents topilli in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

topilli otimacoqueh = we authorities having been duly given our staffs of office (late seventeenth or early eighteenth-century, central Mexico)
Byron McAfee translation of the Tepotzotlan Techialoyan, published in Donald Robertson, The Techialoyan Codex of Tepotztotlan: Codex X (Rylands Mexican Ms. 1), Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 43:1 (Sept. 1960), 128.

coatopil = serpent staff (associated with Huitzilopochtli and Coatlicue, Primeros Memoriales, 261r., 264v.)
cuauhtopilli = eagle staff or wooden staff
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), 319.

auh in San Joseph yeuatl itzmolin yn itopil, ocuepõ oxochiyouac tlamauiçoltica = and it was Saint Joseph’s staff that sprouted, it blossomed, it flowered in a wondrous way (late seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 32.

in Joseph. nimã quitzizqui yn itopil in teopixqui nimã ymac cuepo. yn exchitl in cenca qualli in cenca yectli = Joseph then grasped the priest’s staff. Then in his hand a flower blossomed. It was very good, very fine. (late seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 35.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Auh no yquac quitecazquia yn al[ca]ldeme intopil auh ça[n] conitlacoqur in tlatzo[n]que ypa[n]pa yehua[n]tin macozquia yn al[ca]ldeyotl = Y también en ese entonces los alcaldes pondrían sus varas y lo echaron a perder los sastres a causa de que [pretendían que] a ellos se les diera la alcaldía. (ca. 1582, Mexico City)
Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 136–137.

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Politics, Power, Governance

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