3. From the elbow to the ends of the fingers of the same arm, cemmolicpitl, one elbow, ce, one, molicpitl, elbow. This is the cubit.
4. From the elbow to the ends of the fingers of the opposite arm.
The following were the arm measures:
Cemaçolli, from the tip of the shoulder to the end of the hand (ce, one, maçoa, to extend the arm).
Cemmatl, from the tip of the fingers of one hand to those of the other. Although this word is apparently a synthesis of ce, one, maitl, arm, and means “one arm,” it is uniformly rendered by the early writers una braza, a fathom.
Cenyollotli, from the middle of the breast to the end of the fingers (ce, one, yollotl, breast).
It is known that the Aztecs had a standard measure of length which they employed in laying out grounds and constructing buildings. It was called the octacatl, but neither the derivation of this word, nor the exact length of the measure it represented, has been positively ascertained. The first syllable, oc, it will be noticed, is the same as the Maya word for foot, and in Nahuatl xocopalli is “the sole of the foot.” This was used as a measure by the decimal system, and there were in Nahuatl two separate and apparently original words to express a measure of ten foot-lengths. One was:
Matlaxocpallatamachiualoni, which formidable synthesis is analyzed as follows: matla, from matlactli, ten, xocpal, from xocpalli, foot-soles, tamachiuia, to measure (from machiotl, a sign or mark, like the Cakchiquel etal) l, for lo, sign of the passive, oni, a verbal termination “equivalent to the Latin bilis or dus.”[[406]] Thus the word means that which is measurable by ten foot-lengths.
The second word was matlacyxitlatamachiualoni.
The composition of this is similar to the former, except that in the place of the perhaps foreign root xoc, foot, yxitl, foot, is used, which seems to have been the proper Nahuatl term.