The Maya calendar: the Cholq'ij and your nawal
The Cholq'ij (in Yucatec Maya Tzolk'in) counts 260 days: thirteen numbers and twenty nawales that combine until the same day returns. The Maya peoples of Guatemala have kept it without a break to this day, and the ajq'ijab', spiritual guides, use it for ceremonies, to counsel people and to set the important days. The nawal of the day you were born is your Maya sign.
Today in the Maya calendar
Today, 25 October 2026, is 3 Ajmaq (Oxib' Ajmaq) in the Cholq'ij, 9 Sak' in the Haab' and 13.0.14.0.16 in the Long Count. The year bearer (Mam) is 1 Kej.
The next Waqxaqib' B'atz' (8 B'atz'), the great ceremony day of the K'iche', is on 9 March 2027; the ceremonies begin the evening before.
Your nawal
The civil day is counted, midnight to midnight, as printed calendars do. If you were born at night, especially after sunset, ask an ajq'ij: not every community changes the day at the same hour.
The twenty nawales
- B'atz' (Chuwen): monkey; thread
- E (Eb): road, path
- Aj (Ben): cane, reed; young maize
- I'x (Ix): jaguar; Mother Earth
- Tz'ikin (Men): bird
- Ajmaq (Kib): faults and forgiveness; the ancestors
- No'j (Kaban): thought, wisdom; the earth
- Tijax (Etz'nab): flint, obsidian; the cutting edge
- Kawoq (Kawak): storm; the community
- Ajpu (Ajaw): the blowgun hunter; the sun; the lord
- Imox (Imix): water, caiman; the left side, the hidden
- Iq' (Ik'): wind, air, breath
- Aq'ab'al (Ak'bal): dawn; the night giving way to day
- K'at (K'an): net; what gathers and what entangles
- Kan (Chikchan): serpent
- Kame (Kimi): death; the ancestors
- Kej (Manik'): deer
- Q'anil (Lamat): seed; yellow, ripeness; the star (Venus)
- Toj (Muluk): offering, payment; fire
- Tz'i' (Ok): dog
A living calendar
The Cholq'ij is a living spirituality, not a memory of a vanished people. The meaning of a day is given by an ajq'ij, with the person in front of them, looking at the nawal, the number and the rest of the count; this page can only give the general frame and predicts nothing. If you want to know more about your nawal, go to an ajq'ij of a Maya community.
Dates are calculated with the GMT correlation (584283), the one that agrees with the count the ajq'ijab' of the Guatemalan highlands have kept without a break.