Xiuhpōhualli

The ''xiuhpōhualli'' (, from (“year”) + (“count”)) is a 365-day calendar used by the Aztecs and other pre-Columbian Nahua peoples in central Mexico. It is composed of eighteen 20-day "months," which through Spanish usage came to be known as (“scores, groups of twenty”), with an inauspicious, separate 5-day period at the end of the year called the . The name given to the 20-day periods in pre-Columbian times is unknown, and though the Nahuatl word for moon or month, , is sometimes used today to describe them, the sixteenth-century missionary and ethnographer, Diego Durán explained that:

In ancient times the year was composed of eighteen months, and thus it was observed by these Indian people. Since their months were made of no more than twenty days, these were all the days contained in a month, because they were not guided by the moon but by the days; therefore, the year had eighteen months. The days of the year were counted twenty by twenty.

The calendar (in history known as the "vague year" which means no leap day) had its antecedents in form and function in earlier Mesoamerican calendars, and the 365-day count has a long history of use throughout the region. The Maya civilization version of the is known as the , and 20-days period was the . The Maya equivalent of is . In common with other Mesoamerican cultures the Aztecs also used a separate 260-day calendar (). The Maya equivalent of the is the . Together, these calendars would coincide once every 52 years, the so-called "calendar round," which was initiated by a New Fire ceremony.

Aztec years were named for the last day of the 18th month according to the 260-day calendar the . The first year of the Aztec calendar round was called 2 Acatl and the last 1 Tochtli. The solar calendar is connected to agricultural practices and holds an important place in Aztec religion, with each month being associated with its own particular religious and agricultural festivals.

Each 20-day period starts on a ''Cipactli'' (Crocodile) day of the for which a festival is held. The eighteen are listed below. The dates in the chart are from the early eyewitnesses, Diego Durán and Bernardino de Sahagún. Each wrote what they learned from Nahua informants. Sahagún's date precedes the Durán's observations by several decades and is believed to be more recent to the Aztec surrender to the Spanish. Both are shown to emphasize the fact that the beginning of the Native new year became non-uniform as a result of an absence of the unifying force of Tenochtitlan after the Mexica defeat.

''Veintenas'' of the ''xiuhpōhualli''

Aztec years were named for the last day of their fourth month according to the 260-day calendar, the ''tonalpohualli''.

Reconstruction of the calendar

For many centuries, scholars have tried to reconstruct the Aztec calendar. A correlation that is accepted in some circles was proposed by professor Rafael Tena ( INAH),''The Mexica Calendar and the Cronography''. Rafael Tena. INAH-CONACULTA. 2008 based on the studies of Sahagún, Durán and Alfonso Caso (UNAM). His correlation argues that the mexica year started on February 13th using the old Julian calendar or February 23rd of the current Gregorian calendar.

See also

*Aztec calendar
* Tianquiztli

Notes

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Xiuhpohualli
Mesoamerican calendars
Aztec calendars
Obsolete calendars