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The larger rituals would be on the first half of the 13 day cycles, but other important religious activities were done on specific Tonalpohualli days. [4] For instance, the feast of the sun was held on four movement. [4] Most things in day to day life were dependent on the correlating tōnalpōhualli—even given name.
The Aztec sun stone and a depiction of its base. The Aztec or Mexica calendar is the calendrical system used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico.
Tonal is a concept within the study of Mesoamerican religion, cosmology, folklore and anthropology. It is a belief found in many indigenous Mesoamerican cultures that a person upon being born acquires a close spiritual link to an animal, a link that lasts throughout the lives of both creatures.
Post-conquest scholars such as Sahagún and Durán recorded Tonalpohualli dates with a calendar date. Many indigenous communities in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas [ 29 ] and in Guatemala, principally those speaking the Mayan languages Ixil, Mam, Pokomchí and Quiché, keep the Tzolkʼin and in many cases the Haabʼ. [ 30 ]
The tonalamatl was structured around the sacred 260-day year, the tonalpohualli. This 260-day year consisted of 20 trecena of 13 days each. Each page of a tonalamatl represented one trecena, and was adorned with a painting of that trecena's reigning deity and decorated with the 13 day-signs and 13 other glyphs. These day-signs and glyphs were ...
Each page represents one of the 20 trecena (or 13-day periods), in the tonalpohualli (or 260-day year). Most of the page is taken up with a painting of the ruling deity or deities, with the remainder taken up with the 13 day-signs of the trecena and 13 other glyphs and deities.
Tonalli (see also: Tonal) plays a multiplicity of roles; acting as a day sign, body part, and a symbol of the sun's warmth. Ancient Nahua people believed that it was located in the hair and the fontanel area of one's skull, and that the tonalli provided the “vigor and energy for growth and development”. [1]
As a typical calendar codex tonalamatl dealing with the sacred Aztec calendar – the tonalpohualli – it is placed in the Borgia Group. It is a divinatory almanac in 17 sections. Its elaboration is typically pre-Columbian: it is made on deerskin parchment folded accordion-style into 23 pages.