atlaca.

Headword: 
atlaca.
Principal English Translation: 

people of the water, of the lagoon, of the lake, or the sea; could be used to refer to the people of Mexico City, who lived on islands in the lake or perhaps even the people of the lake shores; sailors; mean people (see Molina and attestations)

Alonso de Molina: 

atlaca. marineros, o gente maluada. Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 8r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

The form "atlaca" may lack the singular absolutive end tl, or it may be the plural used in a partitive meaning, "one of." The word is probably ātlahcatl, a person associated with or inhabitant of the water, which in effect usually means a boatman, sailor, or fisherman. A remote possibility would be ahtlācatl, usually meaning an inhuman, monstrous person, but conceivably susceptible of being interpreted as a nobody, a person of very humble origins. (central Mexico, 1612) 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), 228–229. omomiquilli yn Don Balthasar m̄īn̄ chane S Pablo çoquipan çan atlaca catca amo campa tlahtocayotl ytech quiçaya ynin yehuatl yn gouernador catca azcapotzalco. = don Baltasar Martín, from San Pablo Çoquipan, passed away. He was just a [boatman or fisherman], he didn't come from a ruling dynasty anywhere. He was governor of Azcapotzalco, (central Mexico, 1612) 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), 228–229. ie no ceppa vncan oneoaque acaltica quinvicaque in atlaca = There again they left by boat, taken by the water folk. James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 70.