Principal English Translation:
one's means of living, one's spirit or life principle James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 242.
Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:
yōli, -ya (instrumental construction) James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 242.
Attestations from sources in English:
In many records, used as s synonym of the Spanish ánima, soul. Louise Burkhart translates -yolia as "spirit," saying it is a "life force located in the heart. It survives death and goes on to an afterlife. In the play Holy Wednesday, the translator often paired ánima and -yolia. Louise M. Burkhart, Holy Wednesday: A Nahua Drama from Early Colonial Mexico (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 172–174. yolia…to a personalized animating force housed in and closely identified with the heart (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), 30. teyolia = someone's soul; iyolia ianima = his soul (Juan Bautista, ca. 1599, Mexico City) Susanne Klaus, Uprooted Christianity: The Preaching of the Christian Doctrine in Mexico, Based on Franciscan Sermons of the 16th Century Written in Nahuatl (Bonn: Bonner Amerikanistische Studien e. V. c/o Seminar für Völkerkunde, Universität Bonn, 1999), 247.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
Yequene onilhuiloc ca oquimonextili Diablo ce christiano yn ompa castillan; yn cenca tlaocuxtinenca ypampa yn motoliniaya yoan oquilhui: xinechmaca yn moyolia, ca nehuatl mochioaz yn tleyn yc cenca timotlamachtiz. Oquilhui mayhui, niman, cenca temamauhti = De igual modo me dijeron que se le apareció el Diablo a un cristiano, allá en Castilla; vivía en gran tristeza porque era pobre; y le dijo: abandóname tu alma, y yo te haré ser muy rico en cambio. Éste le dijo: está bien, al instante. Cosa muy espantosa (centro de México, s. XVI) Beorges Baudot, "Apariciones diabólicas en un texto náhuatl de Fray Andrés de Olmos," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 10 (1972), 353–355.