ilamatototl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

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ilamatototl.

Headword:

ilamatototl.

Principal English Translation:

Canyon Towhee, a bird (see Hunn, attestations)

Orthographic Variants:

ilamatotol, ilama totol

Alonso de Molina:

ilama totol. aue solitaria.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 37r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English:

ILAMA-TŌTŌ-TL, literally, “old woman bird,” Canyon Towhee (Melozone fuscus) [FC: 47 Ilamatototl] “It is ashen, chalky; ashen-backed. It is roundish, blunt-billed. It has a small crest. Its home is everywhere in settlements.” Canyon Towhee. This common village bird seems to best fit the description.
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 11 – Earthly Things, no. 14, Part XII, 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, 1963); and, with quotation selections, synthesis, and analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.

themes:

Animals, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, Fish, etc.