Principal English Translation:
a writer or a painter who uses paper; or, an official writer, a scribe (see Molina), a notary
Attestations from sources in English:
amatlacuilo = scribe, writer (or painter) on paper
Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 221.
quintemozq Omentin tipotantosme no omentin mayordomosme auh no çe onyez amatlacuillo = they will search for two diputados; also two mayordormos. Here will also be a notary.
Fray Alonso de Molina, Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: The 1552 Nahuatl Ordinances of fray Alonso de Molina, OFM, ed. and trans., Barry D. Sell (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002), 100–101.
This concept existed in preconquest Mexico and was associated with the nobility.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
amatlacuilo = tlacuilo, tlacuiloani, pintor, escritor, expresado [en jeroglíficos] por el pincel o instrumento que al caso servía
Manuel Orozco y Berra, Historia antigua y de la conquista de México (1960), 401.