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acahualli.

Headword: 
acahualli.
Principal English Translation: 

dry grasses used for lighting ovens (see Molina); weeds

Orthographic Variants: 
acaualli
IPAspelling: 
ɑːkɑːwɑlli
Alonso de Molina: 

acaualli. yeruas secas y grandes para encender hornos.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 1v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

ĀCĀHUAL-LI large, dry leaves for lighting ovens / yerbas secas y grandes para encender hornos (M) [(4)Tp.169,170,243]. The second vowel is attested long only once, but is should be long if the literal sense is ´something dehydrated.´ See Ā-TL, CĀHU(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 1.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

En la actualidad, 'acagual' (a:ca:hualli, lo que ha dejado el agua') designa arbusto Tithonia diversifolia (Hemsley) A. Gray en el Valle de Oaxaca.... Al parecer el término tuvo antes un significado más amplio, equivalente a 'baraña;' el Vocabulario de fray Alonso de Molina de 1571 lo traduce como 'yeruas secas y grandes para encender hornos.'
Carlos Sánchez Silva y Alejandro de Avila Blomberg, La grana y el nopal en los textos de Alzate (Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Dirección General de Culturas Populares e Indígenas/CONACULTA, 2005), 62.

See also: