Toxcatl was one of the eighteen veintena (twenty day month) festivals of the Aztec solar calendar, dedicated to Tezcatlipoca. A young man chosen a year in advance to impersonate the god lived in privileged splendour before being sacrificed at the festival's culmination, an impersonation-and-sacrifice pattern recorded in detail by Sahagun's informants and famous to history as the setting of Hernan Cortes's 1520 attack on the celebrants in Tenochtitlan.
Facts
Reckoning
Calendar SystemAztec solar year (xiuhpohualli) 1 Its own record calls it "one of the eighteen veintena (twenty day month) festivals," matching Panquetzaliztli in this same fill. Fixed or MovableFixed date in its own calendar 1 Observance
Observance TypeVeneration of a deity or holy figure 1 Connections
Associated With
This source names Tenochtitlan directly: "1520 attack on the celebrants in Tenochtitlan."
Source Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New SpainBernardino de Sahagun; translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble
Source Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New SpainBernardino de Sahagun; translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble
Belongs to Tradition
Source Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New SpainBernardino de Sahagun; translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble
Follows Calendar
Originated In
Source Toxcatl (Wikipedia)
Related To
Sources
1. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain
Bernardino de Sahagun; translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, School of American Research and University of Utah Press, 1950Book 2, the ceremonies of the veintenas, ToxcatlView the Source Toxcatl (Wikipedia)
Originated In: Mexico, LeadQuote, Originated In: Mexico, Lead
was the name of the fifth twenty-day month
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