(a loanword from Spanish)
Principal English Translation:
female ritual coparent
(a loanword from Spanish)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 248.
Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:
comādreh-(tli). co-godmother, ritual co-parent. Sp. comadre.
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), 215.
Attestations from sources in English:
In Huastecan Nahuatl this word became comaleh. From that we find the common expression "tocomaleh," a general way to address married women. It is possessed with the first person plural, "to-", which in Huastecan Nahuatl can alternate with "te-", the non-specific human possessor, resulting in "señora" or "ma'am." John Sullivan, personal communication, 12/29/2009.
in icomatre Juana Raffaer tlalchiuhq- = Juana the comadre of Rafael (?), farmer (Tlatelolco, 1586)
Translation by Stephanie Wood. Nahuatl baptism records of Tlatelolco, Caja 21, Archivo Histórico de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de México, Convento Franciscano de San Gabriel, San Pedro Cholula, Puebla.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
Donya Mayor señora toconmadre = a doña Mayor, señora nuestra comadre (Xochimilco, 1577)
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), 214–215.