Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Veintenas

Tozoztontli

Veintenas

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Origin 1200 to 1521

The third veintena, a fasting and penitential period associated with Tlaloc, Coatlicue and the young maize goddess Centeotl. Sahagun's informants describe ear piercing and abstinence kept through the vigil, observed as the newly planted maize took its first hold in the soil.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1200 to 1521 1
Origin Period
Late Postclassic Period, the Aztec Triple Alliance, kept in living informant memory through Sahagun's mid sixteenth century interviews. 1
Place of Origin
Central 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 Name
The Nahuatl name recorded here, Tozoztontli, 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
Language
Classical Nahuatl 3
Observance
Principal Festival
Ear piercing and a fasting vigil 2
Disputed
Approximate Gregorian Span
Mid March into early April 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.
Identity
Position
3 of 19 1
Attributions
Day Count
20 Days 1
Ruling Deity
Tlaloc, Coatlicue and Centeotl 2
Meaning
Literal Meaning
Little Vigil 3
Status
Standing as a Comparative Category
A standard analytic category in the study of religion 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Source The Aztecs (Smith, 3rd edition)Michael E. Smith

Under Patronage Of

Tozoztontli's ruling deity is recorded as Tlaloc, Coatlicue and Centeotl; Centeotl exists in this atlas as a lordofthenight entity, linked as such.

Source The Aztecs (Smith, 3rd edition)Michael E. Smith
Coatlicue, Deities

Tozoztontli's ruling deity is recorded as Tlaloc, Coatlicue and Centeotl.

Source The Aztecs (Smith, 3rd edition)Michael E. Smith
Tlaloc, Deities

Tozoztontli's ruling deity is recorded as Tlaloc, Coatlicue and Centeotl.

Source The Aztecs (Smith, 3rd edition)Michael E. Smith
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
Miguel Leon-Portilla, University of Oklahoma Press, 1963View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

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.