matl

[Galen Brokaw]

Paul,
In the documents I have worked with it only appears as "matl," even when it is plural.
This is probably because the unit of measurement was considered inanimate, and
inanimate nouns did not change their form to indicate plurality.
Galen

Paul Anderson wrote:

> Dear Galen, thanks so much for the clear exposition. It leads me to wonder if Matl
> might be some guise of "distance" as in the Lord of Near and Far. Very helpful,
> very intriguing. Do you know off hand (as it were) the plural for "matl" as
> armspan?
> cheers, Paul Anderson
>
> Galen Brokaw wrote:
>
> > Dear Werner and Paul,
> > The second "matl" to which Werner refers means "hand." Evidently, the "i" got
> > elided from the original "maitl." In some indigenous land documents that have
> > both pictographic and alphabetic versions, you will find the measurement
> > written in Nahuatl as so many by so many "matl." And in the pictographic
> > version you will find a number of hand glyphs drawn on each side of the plot of
> > land that correspond to the number of "matl," that is the length of the border.
> > It seems that the indigenous measure was originally based on the distance
> > between outstretched hands, which the Spanish equated to the "braza."
> > I know this probably doesn't help you, Paul, unless the "matl" that you are
> > studying is also the elided form of "maitl" and had some kind of metaphorical
> > significance.
> > Galen
> >
> > > I have what follows:
> > >         matl (=matl?)   measure, only applied by numbers up to 20.
> > >                         Castillo 1972:213. (matl=2,5027 m)
> > >                         cf. also Cline:1966:93.
> > >                         Hinz/Hartau/Heimann: Aztek.Zensus I, Molotla , add.
> > >                         Anderson,  Beyond the Cod. 26.
> > >                         ell of land     Molotla 12.
> > >                         span. braza, 6 feet, fathom (?= volume)
> > >  For now that is all.
> > > Hear from you?
> > > Werner Asche