⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

tzohuacalli.

Headword: 
tzohuacalli.
Principal English Translation: 

a gourd cup (see Karttunen); a large gourd, sometimes damaged (see Karttunen); sometimes translated as jícara or tecomate in Mexican Spanish

IPAspelling: 
tsowɑhkɑlli
Frances Karttunen: 

TZOHUAHCAL-LI gourd cup / jícara (Z) [(2)Zp.73,226]. M has tzoacati meaning among other things for a squash to become damaged by mildew and tzoacatl, a fruit so damaged. The Z attestations lack an absolutive suffix. One attestation is spelled with medial -HU-, the other without.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 316.

Attestations from sources in English: 

gabriel maldo oquimocohui tzohuacalli tlacuilloli çenpohualtetl ypan v tetl cacahuatl = Gabriel Maldonado bought a painted headboard(?) for 25 cacao beans. (Culhuacan, sixteenth century)
Testaments of Culhuacan (provisionally modified first edition), eds. Sarah Cline and Miguel León-Portilla, online version http://www.history.ucsb.edu/cline/testaments_of_culhuacan.pdf, 14.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

nematellxicalli tepitoto [onte]tl yhua cen[te]tl huey...Yhua peyotl tzohuacaltin... yh[u]a yauique tzohuacalli ce pohualli = dos palanganas, una chica y una grande, para lavarse las manos... jícaras acanaladas... y los veinte tecomates nuevos (Amecameca, 1625)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 168–169.

themes: 
Food, Eating, Cooking
Technology, Tools
See also: 
tzonhuacalli.