calli.

Headword: 
calli.
Principal English Translation: 

house, hut, building, structure, container; also, a calendrical marker and a personal name
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), 212.

Orthographic Variants: 
cally, canli, cali, catli
IPAspelling: 
kɑlli
Frances Karttunen: 

CAL-LI pl: -TIN house / casa (M) M combines the definitions of CAL-LI and CĀL-LI ‘tongs’ in a single entry. R has CAL-LI and CĀL-LI as separate entries but with the vowel length values reversed. Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 22.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

calli = house, houses, it is a house, and they are houses
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), 212.

Attestations from sources in English: 

yuã xamitl. yhuan quahuitl. Yn calli muchiuhtica. = incluye la casa hecha de piedra y adobe y madera. (Tetzcoco, 1572)
Benjamin Daniel Johnson, “Transcripción de los documentos Nahuas de Tezcoco en los Papeles de la Embajada Americana resguardados en el Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México”, en Documentos nahuas de Tezcoco, Vol. 1, ed. Javier Eduardo Ramírez López (Texcoco: Diócesis de Texcoco, 2018), 68–69.

yoan onicaca ichalchiuhcal, yoan iteucujtlacal, yoan itapachcal, yoan iteccizcal, yoan ioapalcal, ixiuhcal, yoan iquetzalcal = And there stood his green stone house, and his golden house, and his coral house, and his shell house, and his house of beams, his turquoise house, and his house of precious feathers (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, ˆ, Part IV, 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, 1978), 13.

nauhtel yn huehuey calli yn nenecoc mamacuilmatl yhuan ca quezquitetl yn huehuey xacalli yvan yn acalcuezcomatl yvan yz cequi çan pilolcuezcomatl = four very large houses each [measuring] five matl across, large straw-roofed houses, and subterranean [?] granaries and some only subsidiary [?] granaries (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
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. 2, 210–211.

Ynic omaxitico Capitā yquac tlatlac. yn caxtoltetl oze calli yn icaltzin. Neçahualpiltzintli. Ca intlacamo yani Mexico cohuanacotzin. ca hamo tlatlazquia ynic cētetl. huey calli. oztocalli. mizquititlā. macpalxochititlā. tlahcuilolcalli. piltzintecuhxochititlā. papaploxochititlā. amanaltenco. xolocalli pochotitlan. tlamelauhyā. tlilcalli. ocoxochicalli. mixcohuacalli. oztocallapāco. calyahualco. ynin moch omtlamātli yn Calli. = When the Captain arrived, then was when the sixteen houses burned, Neçahualpiltzintli's houses. If Coanacochtzin had not gone to Mexico, they would not have burned. The first was the great house; [then] the cave house, the one among mesquites, the one among hand flowers, the library, the one among Piltzinteuhctli flowers, the one among butterfly flowers, the one by the pool, the servants' house, the one among silk cotton trees, the straight place, the black house, the galeum house, the cloud serpent house, the one at the cave wall, the one at the circle. These were all the kinds of houses. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
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. 2, 188–189.

Auh inic naui, tlanauhcaiotia, xiuhtonalli: iehoatl in calli moteneoa, cioatlampa tonalli. Ipãpan iuh quitoaia, cioatlampa: quilmach, çan muchi cioa umpaonoque, aocaque toquichtin. = And the fourth year sign, the fourth in order, [was] the one known as House --the sign of the west. For this reason they named it Ciuatlampa: it is said that there dwelt but women; none of us men were there. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 7 -- The Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the Binding of the Venus, No. 14, Part VIII, 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, 1961), 21.

2 tli nitlanahuatia ca niccactia nosihua ogenia mª itic cali quinhuapahuas ypilhuantoto = Second I order that I am leaving my wife Eugenia María inside the house; she is to raise her little children. (Santa María de la Asunción, Toluca Valley, 1760)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 184.

Besides meaning house, Molina suggests that calli also meant: tongs made of sticks or cane for eating maize toasted over coals.
A translation from Alonso de Molina, 1571, Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana (www.idiez.org.mx), f. 11v.

calli "can mean either one building or a whole complex"
Rebecca Horn and James Lockhart, "Mundane Documents in Nahuatl," in James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds., Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, Preliminary Version (e-book) (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Project, 2007, 2010), 3.

nica cate matlactlomome acticate y çetetlcally = Here there are twelve included in one house. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 164–165.

yn iyoquich ytoca cally = Her husband is named Calli. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 172–173.

(Quihual)caltepozmamatimani calli = The house has further structures on top of it.
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

Callihticpa = from inside the house
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

Also spelled cali.
Thelma Sullivan, Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del siglo XVI en lengua náhuatl (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1987), 30.

Pronunciation of calli could sound like calle, given that nouns that end in "li" could sound as though they ended in "e."
Joseph Augustin de Aldama y Guevara, Arte de la lengua mexicana (Mexico: BIbliotheca Mexicana, 1754), 25.

house or room
S. L. Cline, Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600: A Social History of an Aztec Town (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), 235.

callli = house or room caltepiton = small house caltontli = small house caltzintli = small (or honored) house huehuecalli = old house; inherited (and inheritable) house(s)
Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 222.

tlatocacali = ruler's house tequioacacali = war leader's council house tecali = palace court house pilcali = nobleman's house achcauhcali = constable's house cuicaoacacali = song-dance houses for young men tequitlatocacali = tribute bosses' house telpuchcali = young men's house malcali = house for war captives
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 209.

canli, 1527
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 68–69.

In a testament from sixteenth-century Teotihuacan, we see the translator giving "cuarto" for "cali" -- see section 207, for a couple of examples.
Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima, eds., Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999) 136–37.

Caltepiton = translated as aposento and cuarto in a document from Mexico City from 1578. Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (Mexico City: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 160.

Calli "can be either a whole complex or a single small building within that complex." Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 130.

Good days for getting married were acatl, ozomatli, cipactli, quauhtli, and calli, according to the Florentine Codex. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, Vol. II, Civilized Nations (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1875), 255.

Qujl in qualli tonalli: iehoatl in acatl, oҫumatli, cipactli, quauhtli, calli = They said the good days were Reed, Monkey, Crocodile, Eagle, House (central Mexico, sixteenth century) Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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, 1961), 129.

yn Señorati. yhuan ỹ nican titlaca timacehualtin cihuatzitzinti mochintin. mocaltenq̃. mocaltzacque. yn inchachan = the Spanish women and the local, commoner women, they all went into their houses, shut themselves up in their homes (central Mexico, 1611)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 182–3.

"In the census portion, initiated by the place glyph and gloss and the term tlacatlacuiloli, the household is indicated by the sign for calli, the household head." (p. 52)
Barbara J. Williams, "Pictorial Representation of Soils in the Valley of Mexico: Evidence from the Codex Vergara," Geoscience and Man 21 (1980), 51–62.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

au ipanpa cemicac tlaneltilities omo tlilmachioti axcan ipan nahui cali tecpatl cali tochi acatl cen chiquipil molpia ipan cas tolpuali ihuan matlacpuali yhuan epuali ihua chique chihuitl cahuitl = Pues para siempre estar dando testimonio de este hecho, se escribió y firmó ahora en este dia cuatro casa. Pedernal, Casa, Consejo, Caña, (4 trecenas) en un atado de años se atan. Encima de quinientos sesenta y ocho años el tiempo. (Estado de Hidalgo, ca. 1722?)
Rocío Cortés, El "nahuatlato Alvarado" y el Tlalamatl Huauhquilpan: Mecanismos de la memoria colectiva de una comunidad indígena (New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, Colonial Spanish American Series, 2011), 30–31, 42.

oc no ze cali moquezti[uh] ycal ixpantzinco yn zenquizca ychpochtli tonatiuh yquizanyanpa yztica = otra casa enfrente de la iglesia de Nuestra Señora, que mira hacia donde se mete el sol (San Cristóbal Ecatepec, 1634)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 200–201.

ynin caltzintli ca ye tequiztimani = esta casa, que está dividida en tres pert[e]nencias (San Luis Huexotla, 1632)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 188–189.

yn acocali = la casa alta (Ecatepec, 1625) Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 146–147.
calotli = la casa en el camino (Ecatepec, 1625) Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 146–147.

caltzintli ynic huiyac onpohualli 10 tli quahuitl ca ytech onaci yn itlal Alonso Ortiz auh ynic patlahuac 5 matl = una casa y tiene de largo cincuenta palos y llega hasta la tierra de Alonso Ortiz, y de ancho tiene cinco brazas (Coyoacán, 1624)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 140–141.

ynocalecapohua ynocalnahuatlaca = mis circunvecinos y vecinos (San Salvador Tlalnepantla, 1618) Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 98–99.

ynocal yn ocan nihuetztoc tonatiuh ycalaquiyanpa ytzticac yoan yn totecuiyo oncan monoltitoc yuan yn ithoallo yuan yn ompa hoalcallacohoa monamacaz = mi casa donde al presente estoy echado y enfermo, que tiene la frontera hacia el poniente y adonde están la imágenes, con el patio y la entrada de ello, se venda (San Juan Xihuitonco, México, 1576)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 180–181.

ynhuehuecal yn oca huey tecpa oca mochatiya Alonso de Baça motepoztocaz yneteylhuili ynic motepoztocaz niccemanca ynoxhuiuhtzin yn Ana = las mismas casas antiguas sobre que está fundado mi patrimonio, que son los palacios grandes a donde al presente posa Alonso de Bazán, que se siga el pleito porque serán para mi nieta Ana (San Juan Teotihuacan, 1563)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 138–139.

Yn ipa yecauh Mexico diablo ycal Huitzinlilopochtl = En él se terminó en México la casa del diablo Huitzilopochtli. (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), 118–119.

nitlanauatia yn caltin ynic nica = mando que la casa en que estoy (Santa Bárbara)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 238–239.

auh catli = y la casa (Ocotelulco, sin fecha)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 214–215.

Un elemento caléndrico. Por ejemplo: yei calli, 3 calli = el año de 1521, entre otros. (ca. 1582, México) 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), 133.

Otro ejemplo de la misma fuente: 7 calli = 1525 kal = calli Naja nicnegui yahui ne kal ca co:jtan. = Yo quiero ir a la casa de montan:a. (Sonsonate, El Salvador, Nahuat or Pipil, s. XX) Tirso Canales, Nahuat (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, Editorial Universitaria, 1996), 9–10.

yuã xamitl. yhuan quahuitl. Yn calli muchiuhtica. = incluye la casa hecha de piedra y adobe y madera. (Tetzcoco, 1572)
Benjamin Daniel Johnson, “Transcripción de los documentos Nahuas de Tezcoco en los Papeles de la Embajada Americana resguardados en el Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México”, en Documentos nahuas de Tezcoco, Vol. 1, ed. Javier Eduardo Ramírez López (Texcoco: Diócesis de Texcoco, 2018), 68–69.

IDIEZ def. náhuatl: 
Tlamantli tlen macehualli quicualtlalihtoc ica caltepamitl zo tlapepecholli huan quitzontlapachtoc ica apachtli. “Calli tlen eltoc inechca nochan huetziya pampa quiquixtilqueh tlaquetzalli tlen ica quitetonihtoya. ”
IDIEZ gramática: 
tlat.