The Five Nameless Days of the Xiuhpohualli

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Aztec solar calendar, the xiuhpohualli, divided the year into eighteen months of twenty days each, totaling three hundred and sixty days, with five additional days appended at the end to complete the 365 day solar year. Michael E. Smith's study of Aztec archaeology and ethnohistory describes these five days, the nemontemi, as set apart from the ordinary calendar, unlucky and best passed in as little activity as possible. Colonial era Spanish chroniclers recorded that during the nemontemi people avoided quarrels, refrained from important undertakings and observed a period of fasting and quiet, since anything begun or any misfortune suffered during these days was believed likely to continue in that unlucky pattern through the coming year. David Carrasco's survey of Mesoamerican religion situates the nemontemi within a wider regional pattern of liminal, dangerous time set apart from the ordinary calendar at the year's turning point, a pattern also found among Aztec's Maya neighbors. Because the nemontemi fell outside the eighteen named, patron deity governed months of the regular year, they were widely understood as a time when the ordinary order protecting daily life was suspended, leaving people more exposed to misfortune until the new year properly began.