micca petlacalli.

Headword:

micca petlacalli.

Principal English Translation:

a tomb, a grave (see Molina)

Alonso de Molina:

micca petlacalli. tumba de sepultura.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 55v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English:

tlaujzpetlacalli, in vncan mopiaia, in ixqujch omjto = [There were] chests for the devices, in which were kept all which have been described. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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), 28.

The deceased, the progenitors who are now gone, may have left "their thorn, their maguey," which they "planted deep" upon departing. This may bud and blossom -- in the form of a new child -- in the coffer, the reed chest (toptli, petlacalli). (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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, 1961), 138.

themes:

Death and Dying