Aztec calendar: the tonalpohualli
The Nahua peoples of central Mexico, the Mexica among them, counted days with the tonalpohualli, the count of days: twenty signs combined with the numbers 1 to 13, so that each combination returns every 260 days. It is the same count as the Maya one, with other names, and it runs in step with it.
Today is 4 Ollin (movement).
Your Aztec day sign
By several sources the tonalpohualli day began at sunset or at sunrise; here the civil day is counted.
The twenty signs
| Sign | Meaning | Direction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cipactli | crocodile | east |
| 2 | Ehécatl | wind | north |
| 3 | Calli | house | west |
| 4 | Cuetzpalin | lizard | south |
| 5 | Cóatl | serpent | east |
| 6 | Miquiztli | death | north |
| 7 | Mázatl | deer | west |
| 8 | Tochtli | rabbit | south |
| 9 | Atl | water | east |
| 10 | Itzcuintli | dog | north |
| 11 | Ozomatli | monkey | west |
| 12 | Malinalli | twisted grass | south |
| 13 | Ácatl | reed | east |
| 14 | Océlotl | jaguar | north |
| 15 | Cuauhtli | eagle | west |
| 16 | Cozcacuauhtli | vulture | south |
| 17 | Ollin | movement | east |
| 18 | Técpatl | flint | north |
| 19 | Quiáhuitl | rain | west |
| 20 | Xóchitl | flower | south |
How the count was read
The tonalpouhque, the readers of the days, consulted the tonalamatl, the book of days, to choose dates and to name newborn children: many people bore the day of their birth as their name, like Ce Ácatl Topiltzin Quetzalcóatl, 1 Reed. They read the whole day, number and sign together, and the trecena, the thirteen-day period it belonged to; each sign also had a patron deity and a direction of the world.
What is modern
The "Aztec horoscopes" that describe the character of each sign are mostly modern: the old sources give no personality profiles by sign. So this page has only what the sources say: the name, its meaning, the direction and the patron, which also varies between the codices.
The year and the New Fire
Beside the tonalpohualli ran the xiuhpohualli, the year of 365 days in 18 months of twenty days and five extra days. Years were named after one of four bearers, Calli, Tochtli, Ácatl or Técpatl, with a number: 1521 was the year 3 Calli. Every 52 years the two counts met again, and at the New Fire ceremony all fires were put out; the priests waited on the Huixachtécatl, today's Cerro de la Estrella, for the Pleiades to cross the top of the sky at midnight, and then lit the new fire. The last time was in 1507, a year 2 Ácatl. Counting on in steps of 52, the year 2 Ácatl returns in 2026/27; on which day the year began is debated among researchers, so some sources place it in 2026 already and others in 2027.
The Sun Stone
The Sun Stone, found in 1790 in Mexico City's Zócalo and now in the National Museum of Anthropology, is not a calendar to look things up in but a monument: the solar face at the centre, around it the four earlier suns, Nahui Océlotl, Nahui Ehécatl, Nahui Quiáhuitl and Nahui Atl, and in the ring the twenty day signs.
Dates are calculated with Sahagún's anchor, 1 Cóatl = 13 August 1521 (Julian calendar), which agrees with the GMT correlation of the Maya count. Other correlations have been proposed; this is the most widely used.