miccatepoztli.

Headword:

miccatepoztli.

Principal English Translation:

church bell; literally, dead-person-metal or death-metal, as the bells tolled fairly constantly in the sixteenth century as a result of all the loss of life during the epidemics (see Lockhart)

Orthographic Variants:

miccatepuztli

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

bell; from micqui and tepoztli
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), 225.

Attestations from sources in English:

motziliniz micca tepuztli = will be rung [the] death bell (Tula, 1570)
John Frederick Schwaller, "Constitution of the Cofradía del Santíssimo Sacramento of Tula, Hidalgo, 1570," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 19 (1989), 237.

Literally, dead person's metal ("metal del difunto"), this is a reflection of the sixteenth-century realities as the epidemics decimated the population and bells were constantly ringing.

themes:

Death

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Religion (Christian)

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