Trecena 3, Opening on Mazatl

Trecena 3 opens on 1 Mazatl, the deer, under the patronage of Tepeyollotl, heart of the mountain, the jaguar aspect of Tezcatlipoca associated with caves and the echo that Nahua thought read as his own voice answering from within the rock. Sahagun's informants promised the deer week's children mild good fortune joined to the animal's own restless, timid nature, an augury gentler than the trecenas either side of it yet unsteady, favouring those inclined to travel and to the open country beyond the town rather than settled pursuits.

Within this trecena falls 2 Tochtli, the rabbit numbered two, remembered in the wider tradition as the day of the pulque gods, the Centzon Totochtin, the four hundred rabbit deities of drunkenness whose feast days were scattered through the count and whose most infamous appearance closes Trecena 20; its presence here made the deer week one the readers watched for the temptations of drink alongside its gentler general reading. A week favourable to hunters and to travellers by the readers' general judgement, it draws its character from Mazatl's own place in Nahua thought as the wild beyond cultivation, the animal that keeps to open country and startles at little provocation, exactly the quality Sahagun's informants folded into their reading of those born beneath it.