xexeloa.

Headword: 
xexeloa.
Principal English Translation: 

to divide, to distribute; also, to quarter someone, cutting the person up into pieces as a punishment (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
xehxeloā
IPAspelling: 
ʃeːʃeloɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

xexeloa. nitla. (pret. onitlaxexelo.) repartir, diuidir o partir en partes, distinguir o escaruar la tierra.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 158v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

xexeloa. nite. (pret. onitexexelo.) diuidir y alborotar el pueblo, despedazar o desquartizar.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 158v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

XEHXELOĀ vt to divide something up into portions / repartir, dividir, o partir en partes (M) [(2)CF.72v]. C contrasts this with XEXXĒLOĀ, the corresponding reduplicated form of XELOĀ 'to scatter something.' redup. XELOĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 322.

Attestations from sources in English: 

y nícuac ynin, Ynhue xotzinca ymace hualhuá Yao quizcahuan; omoxêxelocâ mocececan manca = Then these vassals of Huexotzinco and his soldiers scattered themselves in several directions.
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 37.

nitlazeloa = I divide something
moxeloz = will be divided
quizezeloa = divide it, distribute it
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

nima quixexeloque excã q’nquixtique yn intlatqui = then they divided their goods, they put them into three parts (late sixteenth 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), 12.

auh axcan ya nicxexeloa = and now I am dividing it [the property] (n.d., sixteenth century)
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, 4.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

nixpan yn quixexelo coahuitl = en mi presencia repartió leña (Tlaxcala, 1564)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (Tlaxcala: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala y el Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 33.

themes: 
Crime, Punishment