See an image that represents tlacatecolotl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
Eỹtin, in tlatlacateculo, Vitzilobuchtli, Titlacaoan, Tlacavepã, i eixtin tlatetzãvique injc tlalpoliviz in tullan = three demons—Uitzilopochtli, Titlacauan, and Tlacauepan. All three practised sorcery that they might bring ruin to Tula (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, 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), 15.
niman ymac huetzi yn tlacatecolotl Judas yhuampohuan mochihua = they then fell into the hands of the devil; they become companions of Judas (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, 178–179.
inic atle nechtlapololtiz yn aço tlacatecolotl, ahnoço miquiztli, ahnoçe in tlein tetlapololtia nican tlalticpac = so that nothing may bewilder me, whether the devil, or death, or what bewilders one here on earth (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, 176–177.
Tla xihualauh nopiltze, timotolinia, in oc noma ça ye axcan tlayohuayan mextecomac mitznemitia in tlacatecolotl = Come, my wretched child, whom the devil still today maintains in the darkness of sin and the gloom [of ignorance].
Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 77.
the ubiquitous if minor pre-Hispanic supernatural being called a tlacatecolotl, "man-owl", is the term used since the 1540's for the devil
See Sell's comments in Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 22.
in tlacateculutl mocuepani naoale = The possessed one [is] one who transforms himself, who assumes the guise of an animal. (central Mexico, sixteenth century) [This description is worth visiting and reading in its entirety! (SW)]
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 10 -- The People, No. 14, Part 11, 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), 31.
cetecolotl yn diablo = devil (central Mexico, seventeenth century)
Andrés Sáenz de la Peña, Manual de los Santo Sacramentos, 1643, f. 34v.–35r.; translation by Mark Z. Christensen, "Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Ecclesiastical Texts and Local Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and Yucatan," Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 2010, Appendix E, 15–16.
yn tlacatecollotl yn quipia yn itlatquiuh = it is the devil who guards his property. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
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), 90–91.
in quitoaya navalli amo tlacatl. Auh in macevalli iehoatl in quitoaya tlacateculutl tetlepanqueça tetlatlacatecoluvia = what they called a sorcerer, an evil man. And a commoner was what they called a devilish one; he cast spells; he bedeviled people. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 163.
tlacatecolotl = devil, demon (literally, a compound of the words for human being and horned owl); the "horned owl was considered an omen of misfortune" and "had associations with sorcery, malevolence, disguise," etc.; plural = tlatlacatecoloh; Chimalpahin called Tezcatlipoca the "great tlacatecolotl," intending "a cosmic trickster and master of disguises" (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Louise M. Burkhart, Holy Wednesday: A Nahua Drama from Early Colonial Mexico (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 183–184.
Present-day Nahuas sometimes "associate the Devil with wealthy Hispanic gentlemen who seduce local women." (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 140; citing Taggart 1983, 1997.
Ca ye nelli ca amo nitlacatl, ca nitlacateculotl = it is true that I am not a person. I am a demon. (late sixteenth 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), 134.
In youalli, in ehecatl in naoalli in totecuyo. Inin tlatolli, itechpa mitoaya: in tlacateculotl Tezcatlipoca. = Our Lord, the Night, the Wind, the Conjurer. These words were said of the idol, Tezcatlipoca. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 164–165.
tlacatecolotl = a type of sorcerer, literally, "owl person"
Lisa Sousa, "The Devil and Deviance in Native Criminal Narratives from Early Mexico," The Americas 59:2 (October 2002), 161–179; for quote, see 162.
tlatlacatecolo (the reduplicative plural form)
Antonio Rincón, Arte mexicana: Vocbulario breve, que solamente contiene todas las dicciones ue en esta arte se traen por exemplos (1595), 5r.
itlacatecolocuic = the devil’s songs
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. 1, 220, 221.
1523 Acaxihuitl icuac acico Teopixque icuac tlatlacatecolo oquinxixinique (p. 760) = 1523 Reed year. At this time the friars arrived. At this time they destroyed the devils. (Anales de Puebla y Tlaxcala, no. 1, part 2, 1519–1697.)
Frances Krug, "The Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Region," ch. 2, p. 40. Ph.D. Dissertation draft written in the 1980s, with transcriptions and translations approved by James Lockhart. Cited here by SW.