Holidays & Festivals
Toxcatl
Aztec Festivals
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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 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Tenochtitlan directly: "1520 attack on the celebrants in Tenochtitlan."
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