Tecpatl, flint, the sacrificial blade's own material, is read as dry, hard and exact, and the readings honour that character directly: a day of valour, sharp judgement and trials passed, though barren for what needs softness, an augury that rewards decisiveness and severity while offering little to undertakings that call for gentleness or patience instead.
Sahagun ties 1 Tecpatl to Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica's own patron war god, with an augury of courage and success in war, a fitting tie for the sign whose material literally armed the warriors and priests of Mexica religious and military life. This sharp, unforgiving character sets Tecpatl apart even from the count's other severe signs, such as the jaguar's dangerous courage or the reed's hollow instability, since Tecpatl's difficulty is not a warning against excess or a call for discipline but simply the blade's own nature, useful and honoured precisely where hardness was wanted and genuinely unsuited wherever it was not. As one of the four year bearer signs, Tecpatl carried this same exacting character into the years it named, a Tecpatl year read as one demanding resolve from the community living through it rather than offering the gentler promise some other year bearers extended.