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If the gods were displeased, then there would be no new sun and the world would end.Įvery second 52-year cycle was even more important to the Aztecs as this was when the tonalpohualli and the 52-year cycle coincided exactly. This was when a human sacrifice was made to ensure the renewal of the sun. The passing of one 52-year cycle ( xiuhmolpilli) to another was marked by the most important religious event of the Aztec world, the New Fire Ceremony, also known, appropriately enough, as the 'Binding of the Years' ceremony. This 52-year period constituted a Mesoamerican “century”. They have often been explained as two engaged, rotating gears, in which the beginning day of the larger 365-day wheel would align with the beginning day of the smaller 260-day cycle every 52 years. The tonalpohualli and xiuhpohualli calendars ran simultaneously, as Townsend describes,
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Thus, when all four names had been used 13 times, one full 52-year cycle had passed. To distinguish between repeating years they were each given one of 13 numbers, e.g. The whole year had a name, one of four possibilities in sequence: Rabbit, Reed, Flint Knife, and House. The nemontemi was a strange period of limbo when nobody dared do anything significant but waited for the renewal of the calendar proper. These still did not ensure a complete solar accuracy (achieved by our leap-year) and so the calendar did eventually slip out of synch with the seasons, which necessitated the moving of festivals and even re-naming of days. There was also an extra period, the nemontemi (literally, 'nameless' days) tagged onto the end of the year which lasted 5 days. Some scholars begin the sequence with Izcalli and so Atlcahualo becomes the second 'month' and so on. Panquetzaliztli– raising of the quetzal-feather banners.Hueytecuilhuitl – great feast of the lords.Tecuilhuitontli – lesser feast of the lords.Etzalqualiztli – eating maize and beans.This calendar was divided into 18 groups of 20 days (each with its own festival). It was this calendar which signified when particular religious ceremonies and festivals should be held. The second Aztec calendar was the xiuhpohualli or 'counting of the years' which was based on a 365-day solar cycle. The number 260 has multiple significances: it is the approximate human gestation period, the period between the appearance of Venus, and the length of the Mesoamerican agricultural cycle.
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After all possible combinations of names and numbers had been achieved, 260 days had passed. This meant that each day had both a name and a number (e.g.: 4-Rabbit), with the latter changing as the calendar rotated.
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The 20-day group ran simultaneously with another group of 13 numbered days (perhaps not coincidentally the Aztec heaven had 13 layers).
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