responses to an inane question...

[SANCHEZ JOANNA M]

I must thank everyone who responded to what I discover is an old
misunderstanding.
  The question of the sustenance vs
flesh translation came up while Dr. Burkhart was reviewing a masters paper
on the Colloquios. I'd never accuse her of being anything but assiduous in
her approach to translation.  But the debate arose, I believe in light of
Baudot's translation of "tonacayo" in a Shaguntine sermon as "products of
the earth" rather than as the first person plural possessed form of
nacayotl that was her reading.
	I know that tonacayotl as sustenance derives from stem tona +
cayotl, while flesh is nacatl.

I had considered the possibility that the "botanical" metaphor
 somehow operated in  semantically unifying the two words,
but can appreciate how, as Dr. Karttunen points out, we cannot know such
things with any certainty- thanks very much.  Joanna