A complex morphological system for marking respect and social distance exists in the Nahuatl spoken in the Malinche Volcano area of Puebla and Tlaxcala, in Mexico. Principles for usage of the system are described on the basis of observation of 85 speakers in eleven communities. Usage in direct address is relatively stable in all communities. However, usage in reference, which apparently became highly elaborated during the colonial period, is being reduced in some of the modern communities. This seems to reflect the shift in the functional range of Nahuatl toward a usage manifesting indigenist solidarity, with prestige-bearing roles being increasingly encoded in Spanish.