⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

atoctli.

Headword: 
atoctli.
Principal English Translation: 

thick, humid, and fertile soil (see Molina)

IPAspelling: 
ɑːtoktɬi
Alonso de Molina: 

atoctli. tierra gruessa humida y fertil.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 9r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

See an image that represents atoctli in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

“One is composed of the green maize stalk (toctli) and the ideograph for water (atl), which translates as atoctli, a ‘fertile, water-borne soil’ (i.e., alluvium) (Sahagún, 1963, p. 251; Seler, 1904, p. 205).” (p. 57)
Barbara J. Williams, "Pictorial Representation of Soils in the Valley of Mexico: Evidence from the Codex Vergara," Geoscience and Man 21 (1980), 51–62.

atoctli = alluvium
Barbara J. Williams, "Mexico: Aztec Soil Classification and Land Tenure," Actes de XLIIe Congrès International des Américanistes, 9 (Paris: Société des Américanistes, 1980), pp. 165–175. See p. 168.