Origin 1200 to 1521
The seventeenth veintena, dedicated to Ilamatecuhtli, an aged mother goddess, marked by a ritual sweeping out of the old year and a mock combat fought with bundles of reed leaves. The name's own literal meaning is disputed among specialists; see the note beside it.
Facts
Disputed
Literal MeaningDisputed; proposed readings include Wrinkled Old Thing and Stretching
The literal meaning of Tititl is genuinely disputed among Nahuatl specialists. Proposed readings connect it to wrinkling or shrinking, evoking old age, and to stretching; no reading commands general agreement, and this atlas records the disagreement rather than choosing between the proposals. Approximate Gregorian SpanMid December into early January 1 Scholars have proposed several correlations between the xiuhpohualli year and the Gregorian calendar. The month range given here follows one widely reproduced reconstruction and is offered for relative placement only, not as a settled date: the 365 day count carried no intercalated leap day, so its alignment with the solar year is understood to have drifted across the centuries of its use, and colonial era testimony was recorded decades after the practice had ended. Origins
Origin Period Origin PeriodLate Postclassic Period, the Aztec Triple Alliance, kept in living informant memory through Sahagun's mid sixteenth century interviews. 1 Place of OriginCentral Mexico, the Basin of Mexico and the wider Nahuatl speaking highlands under the Aztec Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan. 1 Origin of the NameThe Nahuatl name recorded here, Tititl, follows the spelling given by Sahagun's informants and set down in the Florentine Codex by Spanish trained scribes; other colonial sources and modern transliterations spell it differently. 2 Attributions
Ruling Deity Observance
Principal FestivalThe sweeping out of the year and a mock combat with reed leaves 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryA standard analytic category in the study of religion 1 Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source The Aztecs (Smith, 3rd edition)Michael E. Smith
Under Patronage Of
Tititl's ruling deity is recorded as Ilamatecuhtli.
Source An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the MayaMary Miller and Karl Taube
Sources
1. The Aztecs (Smith, 3rd edition)
Michael E. Smith, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012The chapter on Aztec religion and ritualView the Source 2. 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, the chapter devoted to this veintenaView the Source 3. Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.