elehuia. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

elehuia.

Principal English Translation:

to want or desire (see Molina); to wish (see Lockhart); to covet (often referring to someone else's wife or daughter)

Orthographic Variants:

eleuia

IPAspelling:

eːleːwiɑː

Alonso de Molina:

eleuia. nitla. (pret. onitlaeleui.) dessear o cobdiciar algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 28v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

eleuia. nite. (pret. oniteeleui.) cobdiciar a alguna persona.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 28v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

ĒLĒHUIĀ vt to desire someone or something / desear o codiciar algo (M), codiciar a alguna persona (M) This is attested three times in C with a long vowel in the initial syllable. Elsewhere in C and without exception in B the vowel is not marked long. In T and Z there is short E. T has an intensifier meaning ‘great, very,’ which may be derived from this. It would correspond to a canonical form LALEHUIZ, but since Nahuatl morpheme structure excludes initial L, the one in this item must result from vowel loss or be excrescent. See ĒL-LI, ĒHUA.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 77.

Horacio Carochi / English:

ēlēhuia = to desire
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 168–69 (especially n1), 500.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

to wish, desire. Class 3: ōniquēlēhuih
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), 217.

Attestations from sources in English:

elehuia (verb) = to desire ardently, to covet Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1887), 153.

Ahmō tinēchēlēhuīz, Cē-Tōchtli, Ahquetztimani. Ca nicān tzīntlapān, nicān ēlpachiuh Cē-Tōchtli, Ahquetztimani = You will not covet [i.e., harm] me, One Rabbit, She-is-supine [i.e., the land]. Here One Rabbit, She-is-supine, has broken open at the fundament, has caved in at the chest [i.e., the land will have no strength to hurt me]. (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 86.

nicnehnequi niquelehuia in icniuhyotl in tecpillotl i in coayotl = I'm desiring, craving friends, princes, comrades. (ca. 1582, central Mexico)
John Bierhorst, Ballads of the Lords of New Spain (Austin: University of Texas Press, UTDigital, 2009), f. 3r.; http://utdi.org/book/index.php?page=songs.php

elehuia = desire; ehelehuia = craving (late sixteenth century, Tetzcoco?)
Ballads of the Lords of New Spain: The Codex Romances de los Señores de la Nueva España, transcribed and translated by John Bierhorst (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 29.

mexico tenochtitlan yn iuh mochintin ipan in altepehuaque quellehuia = in Mexico Tenochtitlan, as all the citizens there desire (central Mexico, 1608)
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), 152–3.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

ytlaçoyezçotica oquimomaquixtili ca cenca nicnequi niquelehuia ynic onpa ilhuicatl ytic papacohuayan nechmohuiquiliz = redimió con su preciosísima sangre, y que la lleve a la corte del cielo en su gloria (Tetepango, Hidalgo, 1586)
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), 258–259.

Yhuan ma cuel ticmocuitlahui, ma tiquelehui yn cuyetl, in huipilli = Y no anheles, no desees la falda, la camisa (la mujer)
Huehuehtlahtolli. Testimonios de la antigua palabra, ed. Librado Silva Galeana y un estudio introductorio por Miguel León-Portilla (México: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 68–69.

tlein tiquelehuia = que desseas
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana (Mexico: Henrico Martínez, 1611), 3.

niquelehuia in tlaxcalli = deseo pan;
niquimelehuia in pitzome = deseo cerdos
Joseph Augustin de Aldama y Guevara, Arte de la lengua mexicana (Mexico: BIbliotheca Mexicana, 1754), 41.

themes:

Sexuality, Fertility, Reproduction

Women, Men, Gender