cuauhtla. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

cuauhtla.

Principal English Translation:

forest, woods, wilds, the backcountry
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), 231.

Orthographic Variants:

quauhtla

Alonso de Molina:

quauhtla. montaña, arboleda o bosque.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 87r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

complex absolute relational word. quahuitl, -tlah. 231

Attestations from sources in English:

in çacatla yn quauhtla = in the wilds (Huejotzingo, 1560)
Literally, "grassland and forests"; the entry desierto in Molina contains both of these terms.
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 29, 188–189, n14.

Intlacouh, inzacapech in ueuetque. Inin tlatolli, itechpa mitoaya: inic yancuican acico chichimeca ueuetque, in oc quauhtla, in oc zacatla. = The beds of twigs and straw of the ancients. This was said about the ancient Chichimecas when they first arrived. It was still forest and open plains.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 174–175.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

In zan inehuiyan omocalaqui in quauhtla, in zacatla yhuan in zan inehuiyan xomolli, caltechtli = Sólo de su voluntad se metió al bosque, al hierbal y por sí mismo se acercó a los rincones, a las paredes (Mexico central, s. XVI)
Huehuehtlahtolli. Testimonios de la antigua palabra, ed. Librado Silva Galeana y un estudio introductorio por Miguel León-Portilla (México: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 58–59.

themes:

Landscape Features

Plants, Trees, Flora