⚠ 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.

mamaltia.

Headword: 
mamaltia.
Principal English Translation: 

to load, burden (oneself or another person or animal)
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), 224.

IPAspelling: 
mɑːmɑltiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

mamaltia. nicno. (pret. onicnomamalti.) tomar algo sobre su consciencia, vna cosa encargarse de algo, o tomar algo acuestas.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mamaltia. ninotla. (pret. oninotlamamalti.) tomar la carga acuestas.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mamaltia. nitetla. (pret. onitetlamamalti.) cargar a otro, o encargarle algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mamaltia. nic. (pret. onicmamalti.) abonar a otro enla hazienda.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

MĀMALTIĀ vrefl,vt to assume a burden, to take something on one’s conscience, to take a load on to one’s shoulders; to burden someone with responsibility for something / tomar algo sobre su conciencia, encargarse de algo, o tomar algo a cuestas (M), tomar la carga a cuestas (M), cargar a otro o encargarle algo (M), abonar a otro en la hacienda (M), le carga, lo acusa (T) [(2)Bf. IV,11V, (7)Tp.153,191]. The vowel of the second syllable is short here, although it is long in the verb MĀMĀ ‘to bear something’ and in the applicative derivation from MĀMĀ . Derived forms of MĀMĀ with L are easily confused with MAMAL(I) ‘to drill a hole through something.’ caus. MĀMĀ MĀMALTILIĀ applic. MĀMALTIĀ MĀMALTĪLŌ nonact. MĀMALTIĀ
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 135.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

māmaltia, nic. Class 3: ōnicmāmaltih. causative of māmā. 224

Attestations from sources in English: 

niman yc quinmamaltiaya y çeçeme ychpupuchti = then they had each of the maidens carry [the ears of maize] on their backs
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 58.

aocac macehualli tlamamaz yxcuatica yn iuh muchiuhtihuiz quinmamaltia huehuey cuauhchiquihuitl yhuan yn ҫaҫo tley huehuey tlamamalli oquinmamaltiaya frayles yhuan españoles [...] ҫa caualloti yn quintlamamalizque ohtlipan = commoners are no longer to carry loads using their foreheads, as happens when they load them with large wooden baskets, or when the friars and Spaniards make them bear any kind of heavy load [...] only horses are to carry for them on the road (central Mexico, 1613)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 256–7.

themes: 
Labor, Work, Labor Concerns