yaotl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

yaotl.

Principal English Translation:

enemy; in compounds (-yao-), refers to war, hostilities, battle(s); when a personal name, translates "combatant;" and, a deity's name, part of the Tezcatlipoca Complex of deities that relate to power, omnipotence, often malevolence, feasting, and revelry.
"Table 3. Major Deities of the Late Pre-Hispanic Central Mexican Nahua-Speaking Communities," Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 6: Social Anthropology, ed Manning Nash (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967).

Orthographic Variants:

yautl

IPAspelling:

yɑːoːtɬ

Alonso de Molina:

yaotl. enemigo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 31r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

yecoa. yaocnitla. (pret. yaoc onitlayeco.) pelear fuertemente en la guerra.

Frances Karttunen:

YĀŌ-TL enemy / enemigo (M) In compounds YĀŌ also means ‘war, battle,’ but as a free form ‘war’ is YĀŌYŌ-TL, contrasting with YĀŌ-TL ‘enemy.’
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 335.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

enemy; in compounds, refers to war; hostilities; battle
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), 242.

Attestations from sources in English:

See an image that represents yaotl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

Sabado ynic .10. mani metztli octubre in ipan omoteneuh xihuitl no cuel cenpohuallonchiuhcnahui tlacatl in tiyacahuan soldadostin o no yahque yn ompa omoteneuh acapulco, Miercoles. ynic .14. mani Metztli octubre de 1615. años. ihcuac nohuian teupan ynic cenciu[dad] Mexico. otlatlatlauhtilloc otlayahualoloc. yn inpa[mpa] omoteneuhque tlacpac toyaohuan in teohuatentli quitocatinemi yn techyahuallotinemi = Saturday, the 10th of the month of October in the said year, again 29 soldiers, warriors, left for the said Acapulco. Wednesday, the 14th of the month of October of 1615, was when in all the churches all over the city of Mexico there were prayers and processions on account of our above mentioned enemies who are going along the seashore and surround us (central Mexico, 1615)
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), 306–7.

ca uel ic qujmontzintopeoaia in cioa iaoc, ic eioltoneoa, ic teioleoa, ic teiollo tzicujnia in cioa, in iaoc = For in truth thus the women could torment [young men] into war; thus they moved and provoked them; thus the women prodded them into battle (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 62.

toiaovan = our enemies (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 238.

ca huehueyntin yaotiacahuan catca quetzalpatzactli = great, brave warriors. The quetzal feather crest device was their insignia; they bore it upon their backs in battle. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 144–145.

iaumic in chimalpupuca, in ipiltzin Motecuçoma = Chimalpopoca, son of Moteucçoma died in battle (Mexico City, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 156.

toiaouh = they are our enemies (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 94.

quicuique yn atlatl ynic tlaminaya yaoc = they took up the atlatl with which they shot darts in war (central Mexico, searly seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 28–29.

yautl = Enemy, a name given to boys (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 253.

yz ca ymach i yaotl ayao moquatequia ytoca xochique = Here is the nephew of Yaotl, not yet baptized, named Xochiquen. (This name is fairly common. See another one, for example on 136–137.)(Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 110–111.

matheo yaotl (Tepetlaoztoc, sixteenth century)
Barbara J. Williams and H. R. Harvey, The Códice de Santa María Asunción: Facsimile and Commentary: Households and Lands in Sixteenth-Century Tepetlaoztoc (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1997), 91.

nigolas yaotl (the glyph next to this name shows a macana and a shield, symbols of conflict) (Tepetlaoztoc, sixteenth century)
Barbara J. Williams and H. R. Harvey, The Códice de Santa María Asunción: Facsimile and Commentary: Households and Lands in Sixteenth-Century Tepetlaoztoc (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1997), 96–97.ca uel ie qujmontzintopeoaia in cioa iaoc, ie teioltoneoa, ic teioleoa, ic teiollo tzicujnia in cioa, in iaoc… Ca qujttoa, in toqujchti… eço tecoco, yn jntlatol cioa, eço teittic acic in cioatlatolli, ca otiiaque, ça otiqujtoque, yn ahtinemizque: aço itla tomaceoal tocnjuhtze = For in truth thus the women could torment [young men] into war; thus they moved and provoked them; thus the women prodded them into battle…. For the men said: … “Bloody, painful are the words of the women; bloody, heart-rending are the words of the women. Let us be on our way; let us offer ourselves as warriors. Friends, perchance we may attain reward.” (16th century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 62.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

noyaouan ynic amo nechtlapololtizque = mis enemigos no me perturben (Ciudad de México, 1580)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 190.

yn testigos ynitoca Luys Pane yuan Benito Yyaolli yuan Pedro Totol = los testigos llamados Luys Pane, Benito Yyaotly, y Pedro Totol (Tlaxcala, 1560)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en Náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (México, Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 6.

themes:

War, Conflict