The tonalpohualli consisted of a cycle of twenty day names combined with the numbers one to thirteen. The names were those of animals, elements, and objects of daily life or of sacrificial significance: crocodile, wind, house, lizard, serpent’s head, deer, rabbit, water, dog, monkey, grass, reed, jaguar, eagle, vulture, motion, flint knife, and flower. The cycle began with One Crocodile, followed by Two Wind, Three House, Four Lizard, and so on. When the calendar reached Thirteen Reed, the numerical cycle began again with the fourteenth name-Thirteen Reed, One Jaguar, Two Eagle, Three Vulture, and so on; and when the sequence reached the end of the twenty names, the name order began again with the number-seven Flower, then Eight Crocodile, Nine Wind, and so on. Each time the number cycle returned to one was the beginning of a new thirteen-day “week” within the 260-day year. The Spaniards who recorded the use of the calendar called these “weeks” trachea.
Record of the 260-day calendar was kept in long scene-fold books made of bark paper called tonalamantl (a combination of the words for the calendar, tonalpohualli, and bark paper, amatl). When written down, the numbers were represented by a system of dots and each of the day names was rendered as a small hieroglyphic symbol.
The xiuhpohualli consisted of eighteen twenty-day months, plus a period of five ill-omened days called noontime at year’s end. Each month was associated with a particular deity and contained a religious festival, usually connected to the agricultural seasons and honoring that god or goddess. During the noontime, priests, rulers, and common people tried to refrain from all activity for they felt that any action would come to no good. They did not leave the house to tend the fields or work the market stall. They allowed domestic fires to go out, broke their crockery, abstained from eating, and even stopped talking. They looked forward to the New Year, but in trepidation.
Using the two calendars together created a longer cycle. A particular in the year count intersected with a day in the could only once every 18,980 days-equivalent to once every seventy-three tonalpohualli cycles or once in fifty-two xiuhpohualli years. Aztecs custom was to keep count of the years in fifty-two-years cycle by making a bundle of sticks. From this practice they took the name “bundle of years” for a fifty-two-year cycle. At the end of each cycle they ceremonially burned the bundle as part of ceremonies to inaugurate the new cycle.
The way in which the two calendars intersected meant that each New Year in the xiuhpohualli year calendar could begin with one of only four day names from the tonalphualli day calendar: rabbit, reed, flint knife, or house. The name that fell on the first day of the year was celebrated as the “year bearer.” There were twenty days in each xiuhpohualli month and twenty day names in the tonalpohualli cycle: therefore the day sign associated with the first day of the year also fell on the first of every month and was celebrated as the “month bearer” as well as the year bearer. Within larger cycle, the years took their name from their year bearer. In the fifty-two-year bundle of years, the year bearers took the number one to thirteen in succession; for example, One Rabbit, Two Reed, Tree Flint Knife, Four House, Five Rabbit, Six Reed, and so on. The combined calendars could identify any day within a fifty-two-year cycle, but there was no means of distinguishing between one fifty-two-year’s cycle and the next.
The Origins of the 260-day Calendar
Use of the tonalpohualli can be traced far back into the Mesoamerican past-perhaps as far as the Oleic in the mid-second millennium BCE. There are various theories explaining the origin of the calendar.
Some historians argue that the 260-day interval was originally that between planting and harvest in the Mesoamerican agriculture year. The magical power associated with the period in which plants take life in the earthy may have reinforced by the hallowed cycle of the planet Venus: 260 day corresponds roughly to the time lapse between the first sighting of Venus as the Evening Star and the planet’s coming as the Morning Star. But other scholars suggest that 260 days (roughly thirty-seven weeks) may have been the measure used by Mesoamerican midwives to predict the length of a woman’s pregnancy when counting forward from her last menstrual period. The Maya also used the 260-day calendar and their descendants in modern Guatemala report that the length of the tonalpohualli is based on that of human pregnancy.
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