Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

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

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.

themes: 
Fire, Tobacco, Incense
Plants, Trees, Flora
See also: 
acahualla.