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yolmelahua.

Headword: 
yolmelahua.
Principal English Translation: 

to confess; to confess someone (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
yolmelaua
IPAspelling: 
joːlmelɑːwɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

yolmelaua. nino. (pret. oninoyolmelauh.) confessarse.
yolmelaua. nite. (pret. oniteyolmelauh.) confessar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 41r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

otimoyolcuiti, otimoyolmelauh = we confessed (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.

nitlatlacoani ninoyolmelahua = I am a sinner, I confess (post-1650, Atzaqualco, CDMX)
Elizabeth Hill Boone, Louise M. Burkhart, and David Tavárez, Painted Words: Nahua Catholicism, Politics, and Memory in the Atzaqualco Pictorial Catechism (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2017), 168.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

auh atle nechyolmela ypanpa justicia niquixpanti = y nada apaciguo mi pecho por eso ante la justicia lo demande (Tlaxcala, 1565)
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), 39.

Titiotoyomelahua, literalmente, ‘enderezamos nuestros corazones’ por ‘nos confesamos’. Yolmelaua, nite, confesar. (centro de Mexico, s. XVI)
Ascensión Hernández de León-Portilla, “Un Prologo en náhuatl suscrito por Bernardino de Sahagún y Alonso de Molina” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 29(1999), 199-208, example for page 207.

themes: 
Religion (Christian)