Tecpatl's Patron and the Northern Quarter

Tecpatl's patron in the day sign count is Chalchiuhtotolin, the jade turkey, a penitential aspect of Tezcatlipoca associated with disease and its cure, a patron whose concern with correction and consequence matches the blade sign's own exacting, unforgiving character, severity paired with severity rather than softened by a gentler governing deity. Its direction is north, and as one of the four year bearer signs Tecpatl specifically names the years of the northern quarter across the fifty two year Calendar Round, the last of the four directions to complete the cycle alongside Calli in the west, Tochtli in the south and Acatl in the east. The same arithmetic that governs all four year bearers applies here: each solar year's opening day sign advances five places from the year before because 365 exceeds an even multiple of twenty by exactly five, and only four signs spaced that far apart ever recur as year openers across the fifty two years before the tonalpohualli and the solar count together return to their shared starting point. A Tecpatl year, closing out the four bearer directions, was read by the tonalpouhque with the same demand for resolve and valour its ordinary day carries, the community's own trial to pass rather than a year of ease.