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popochhuia.

Headword: 
popochhuia.
Principal English Translation: 

to perfume or incense oneself or something else (see Molina); to be smoked, or to smoke or fumigate something (see Karttunen)

IPAspelling: 
popoːtʃwiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

popochuia. nino. (pret. oninopopochui.) perfumarse, o zahumarse.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 83r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

popochuia. nite. (pret. onitepopochui.) çahumar, o incensar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 83r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

popochuia. nitla. (pret. onitlapopochui.) incensar, o perfumar.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 83r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

POPŌCHHUIĀ vrefl,vt to be smoked; to smoke, fumigate something / se sahuma (T), lo sahuma (T) This is abundantly attested in T and also appears in B and R. R has a glottal stop in the first syllable. This may be derived from POPŌCH-TLI 'incense,' but it seems to be synonymous with Z's PŌCHUIĀ and may also be a reduplicated derivation from PŌCH 'smoke.' See PŌC-TLI, -HUĪA. POPŌCHHUILIĀ applic. POPŌCHHUIĀ. POPŌCHHUĪLŌ nonact. POPŌCHHUIĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 203.

Attestations from sources in English: 

quinmotequipanihuis, quintlacpanilis, quitlapoposh-huitz = he is to serve them, to sweep for them, to provde them with incense. (San Pablo Tepemaxalco, Toluca Valley, 1681)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 148.

tlapanasas tlaposhuizsis notepos beniton guachi = my son Benito Joaquin is to sweep and spread incense (San Lucas, Evangelista, Toluca Valley, 1759)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 162.