Common Gallinule, a bird (see Hunn, attestations); others have called it an American coot
CUACHIL-LI/CUACHIL-TON, Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata) [FC: 27 Quachilton] “It lives on the water; it belongs with the ducks. Its head is chili-red, its bill pointed. It lives, it is hatched only here, among the reeds.” Martin del Campo identified this bird as the American Coot (Fulica americana). However, I suspect the description better fits the coot’s close relative, the Common Gallinule, which sports a conspicuous red frontal shield. The coot, by contrast, shows only a rather obscure purplish bump on its white bill. See also YACA-CIN-TLI, the American Coot.
ma ticcohuacan yn tetl. yn quahuitl. ma yehuatl yca. yn atlan chaneque yn atlan onoque ӯ michin yn axollotl yhuan in cueyatl. yn acocillin. yn anenez yn acohuatl. yn axaxayacatl. yn izcahuitli. yhuan yn canauahtli yn quachilli = yn yacaçintli. yn ixquich yn totome yn atlan chaneque = Let us buy stone and wood by means of water life, the fish, salamanders, frogs, crayfish, dragonfly larvae, water snakes, waterfly eggs, and red shellfish that live in the water; and the ducks, American coots, all the birds that live in the water. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)