hueltiuhtli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

hueltiuhtli.

Principal English Translation:

elder sister (see Karttunen and Lockhart, below)
or
great-grandmother (Anderson and Dibble's translation of the Florentine Codex, Book 10, Folio 4v); the FC also gives tehueltiuh as a synonym of hueltiuhtli

Orthographic Variants:

huēltiūhtli, ueltiuhtli, veltiuhtli

IPAspelling:

weːltiuːhtɬi

Alonso de Molina:

ueltiuhtli. hermana mayor.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 157r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

HUĒLTIŪH-TLI elder sister / hermana mayor (M) [(2)Bf.4v,(1)Cf.63v]. The possessed form adds a glottal stop before –TZIN, -HUĒLTĪHUAHTZIN.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 87.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

huēltiuh-(tli). older sister or female cousin of a male. reverential -huēltihuahtzīn. 218
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), 218.

Attestations from sources in English:

Tlā xoconmatiti in nohuēltīuh cuix ōcoch... = Go in order to know whether my older sister [i.e., the woman being hypnotized] has gone to sleep. (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 79.

Ye quihuālhuīcah in nohuēltīuh, in Xōchiquetzal. Quihuālhuīcah in iihīyo yez, in īchcatlahuītec, in īcpateuh, in īc nēchahāhuiltīzqueh = Already they are accompanying hither my older sister, Xochiquetzal [i.e., a person who is ineffectual in battle]. They are bringing that which will be her breath [i.e., gentle, loving attack], her cotton fluff [i.e., ineffectual clubs], and her ball of thread [i.e., ineffectual rocks], with which they will give me pleasure. (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 77.

Nēchāhuiltīzqueh in nohuēltihuān, in notlācaxīllōhuān = my older sisters, my human kinsmen [i.e., my weak enemies], give me pleasure [i.e., fight me]. (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 77.

yz ca yveltiuh y veytecuitl -- ytoca olacatl = Here is Hueiteuctli's older sister named Ollacatl. (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), 160–161.

-hueltiuh (when possessed, singular)

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

ytech pohuiz ynohueltiuh Maria = ha de ser para mi hermana María (Ocotelulco, 1619)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 190–191.

themes:

Family, Kinship, Descent