New Fire Ceremony

                                                                                          The New Fire Ceremony

   Of all of these numerical phases of the Mesoamerican Calendar, which have been to some degree outlined in these chapters found beforehand, none in fact should make any sense within the actual unfoldment of time counting found in the natural world if it were not for the meaning of the New Fire Ceremony, which is the underpinning of all Mesoamerican Calendars throughout all of ancient Mexico. This would include that of the Mayan era Calendars as well, which no doubt should represent best where this particular ceremony had initially originated from, long ago in the distant past with the Mayan and Olmec cultures. The most pertinent of astronomical cycles that lead to the final conclusion of the New Fire Ceremony is that of the cycle of years, called in the Nahuatl, “Xiuhpoualli,” meaning quite simply ‘year count’. The year count consists of a series of four symbols that are called ‘year bearers’ and which also serve as part of the 20-day count. These four year bearers have in the past, served to either open the year and each new month within it, (as was the practice with the Mayan Calendar), or else to close the year and each passing month, as was practiced with most of the following Central Mexican Cultures, including most notably that of the Mexica-Aztecs.

   In the final phase of Mesoamerican Calendarictics, the four year bearers, which were called the “Xiuhtlapoualli,” (year-counters), were then known as: Acatl (Reed), Tecpatl (Flint), Calli (House), and Tochtli (Rabbit). These four year bearers were in turn multiplied by thirteen numbers, and were finally to increase into the amount of the 52-year cycle, which contained the various multiples of all other cycles within it. These year counts were in turn bundled into a set of four, and designated by the initiation of each year bearer that was marked by the number one, which carried the set to its completion of thirteen years, and for which was then to be called a “Xiuhtlalpilli,” and was therefore designated by the opening year signs of: 1 Reed, 1 Flint, 1 House, and 1 Rabbit. While serving in the role of the year bearer, these four symbols also simultaneously closed each of the passing 20-day months in later Mesoamerica, so that the particular position of one of these ‘tonalli-year signs’ would in turn designate the full identification of the year as being named as 1 Reed, 2 Flint, 3 House, 4 Rabbit etc. etc

In the final rendition of the “Mexica-Azteca Calendar tradition derived specifically from out of Tenochtitlan,” these particular set of ‘year-bearer-tonalli signs’ specifically occurred along with their particular "Year Number," at the end of the 4th Metztli of “Huey Tozoztli,” and the 17th Metztli of “Tititl,” which were in turn the 80th and 340th days of each passing year respectively; meaning of course that the 80th and 340th tonalli-days within the year were to have designated the name of each Mexica Year in Tenochtitlan. The Mexica-Azteca specifically mandated their calendar to operate in this way, which ultimately deposited the end of the year in mid-February, and so leaving the ominous passage of the 5-Nemontimi usually to occur about one month before the spring equinox.

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Other cultures in the vicinity started their particular year within a different period of the 365-day year cycle, therefore giving the year a different number, and as well depositing the end of the year with its 5-unlucky days at a different time within the seasons as well. Apparently, this was true in the case of the local sister city of Tezcoco, wherein it is said that the year began in December around the time of the winter solstice, at the end of the month of Atemoztli. This would mean that their year system was to be numbered differently, and that the Nemontemi occurred at a different time in the year as well. (Edmunson.1988.)

Despite this small discrepancy, which exists among many others that are to be found between the shared territories of Mexico and its differing ancient calendar systems, the whole account of the New Fire Ceremony and its connection with the Xiuhpoualli would nonetheless hinge upon the authority of one given tribe per region, and for the case of later Mesoamerica this authority no doubt was to fall within the grasp of the Mexica-Azteca, and the year count of their own particular calendar cycles, which was always to begin the year around mid-February of the current Gregorian calendar correlation.

The fact that this New Year cycle can be verity allotted to the month of February is indeed the result of the correction procedure that takes place every 52-year’s at the time of the New Fire Ceremony. If this procedure did not take place, the 20-day month cycle of the 18-fold “Metztliapoualli,” (the 20-day subset of the 360-day ilhuitl cycle) would continue to drift backwards through the year by about 13-days every 52-years, and would not return for a full cycle until about 1,507 years later, when once again the 20-day month would then find its location in the same part of the seasonal year. Therefore, if a drift were allowed to take its course it would take 1,507-years for the first seasonal 20-day month to make its way back to February. But within this month is in fact where the New Year belongs in the Aztec version of Mesoamerican Calendars anyway.

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Therefore, we know that this drift was not allowed to take its course, due to the fact of many presentable and logical pieces of information, which are outlined in the various descriptions of the calendarictic functions, and how these all worked in concert with the passage of the seasons. Understanding these descriptive facts are all a part of a thorough study of Mesoamerican Calendarictics, which takes us beyond the usual and generalized textbook terms and definitions, which we know are few and far between as the field currently stands anyway. Therefore, there is no need to become perturbed by the realization of a correction procedure taking place within the Mesoamerican Calendar, because there are actually many facets of ancient iconography, which go a long way to prove that certain 20-day months actually belong in certain seasons, and even correspond to the various stellar constellations that are found at those times of the year, which are indeed to be outlined specifically by various official historical sources. These facts simply have not been presented as clearly or continuously as they should be to us, therefore we still continue to mount the subject matter conditionally, as a matter of expertise rather than as an accessible set of facts that can be clearly alluded to, and located by anyone; and which then would beneficially vindicate the calendar as being annually functional to the yearly change of the seasons.

Out of the details of the Mesoamerican Calendar that have here been presented within this study, there stands out a series of cycles, which each carry the suffix of ‘poualli’ and that designate them specifically as a count. The counts are:

The Metztliapoualli – The count of eighteen 20-day periods or months

The Tonalpoualli – The count of thirteen 20-day periods that amount to 260-days

The Ilhuitlpoualli – The count of 365-days totaling the full 18-cycles of 20-days (360-days) plus 5-extra

The Xiuhpoualli – The count of four 13-year periods (Xiuhtlalpilli), totaling a full cycle of 52-years

The Xiuhmolpilli - The count and binding of 52-year cycles

Within this current study, specific ideas have been given by this author, which refer to the possible enigmatic origins of some of these numeric cycles. These ideas will be alluded to again below briefly in order to produce some further analysis with regards to the implicit correlations that exist between the increments of accumulating lunar degrees, and the numerology of some of the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles.

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Now, at this time however, we will first set out to designate the meaning of the term, which is often erroneously given over to the counting of the year cycle, but in reality is specifically to be used for the original Nahuatl term that pertains to what we now call the “New Fire Ceremony.” The Nahuatl word in question is usually heard in conjunction with the year cycle because of the Nahuatl word for ‘year’ in it. However, in this case, the word ‘year’ is conditional, and based on an ‘accumulation of years’ that are in turn specifically to be transformed during the New Fire Ceremony. The true reference word to designate the New Fire Ceremony is the “Xiuhmolpiliztli.”

The word Xiuhmolpiliztli is based on four different blended Nahuatl terms and indeed there can even be added a fifth, which designates the word as possessive in the guise of “Toxiuhmolpiliztli,” which means, “Our Years Have Increased to be Bound.” To (our) Xihuitl (years) Molhuia (increased) ilpia (bound) Liztli (denotes action). In short form, this term has come to be generically understood as the “Binding of the Years,” (ceremony) although no specific word for ceremony is indicated. In fact, our common conception of the ritual as being the “New Fire Ceremony,” has in part apparently come forth from the definition of a common ritual of ‘drilling fire’ at the commencement of a new home being opened officially to its owner. In the 5th book of the Florentine Codice, this common ritual is referred to as the “Cemamalhuaztli,” meaning, ‘first new fire drilled’. Simply by adding a second word to the term, we can account for the word ‘ceremony’ thru the Nahuatl word for ‘offering’, which would be “Tlamanalli.”

Thus “Cemamalhuaztli Tlamanalli,” could finally in our terms come to mean in the Nahuatl, “New Fire Ceremony.” But also, more specifically in the 7th Book of the Florentine Codex, there are given the Nahuatl terms for the ‘newly drilled fire’ of this ceremony that was held every 52-year’s, as being referred to as the “tlequahuitl.” However, it would seem that this term is related to a metaphor for the ceremony through the word that implies ‘fire drill’, and which is specifically implied in the Nahuatl phrase of: “Huetziz Tlequahuitl,” meaning literally, ‘the fire stick will fall’. (Sahagun.1953. VII: 25) This in turn related the celestial aspect of the ceremony by giving reference to the fire drill as having fallen out of the sky, from out of the specific constellations that contain their images.

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The 52-year cycle, which is the basis of the New Fire Ceremony, could include a variable amount of days depending on what exactly was being counted. When the terms of the ‘360-day ilhuitl cycle’ are being counted over a period of 52-years, the result is only 18,720 days. This of course does not account for the 5-extra days at the end of every year, so that a further calculation of 365-days would be necessary, amounting to 18,980-days. However, because the year is actually 365.2422 days long, the true calculation of a 52-year period would be 18,992.5944-days. This amounts to a difference of 12.5944 days that must be accounted for at the end of each 52-year period. Notice here that this figure of 12.5944-days or (12.6-days) is not actually a full 13-day’s long.

As we saw within the 365-day figure, the lack of any pertinent symbolism due to the precision of the 20-day divisions that fulfill the 360-days of the year, leaves aside 5-extra days that were to be (considered ritualistically transparent) at the end of each year. However, in truth while these days are considered in essence blank, the vestiges of the 260-day Tonalpoualli were nonetheless still to run unobstructed beneath this line of ‘5-transparent days’ as a kind of eerie parade of supernatural ghosts that ended each year. For that matter, this particular set of 5-tonalli’s that commenced simultaneously with the 5-Nemontemi at the end of each year were to be considered dangerous, as well as exaggerated in their natures.

For this reason, within these 5-days were allotted the work of only the most essential of all needed human tasks, while all other work was to be put off until the New Year. As was indicated, depending on the culture, the year could begin and end, at almost any point of the 365-day compass of the year. It therefore of course would make almost anyone wonder, what might have been going on throughout the whole country of ancient Mexico, if indeed a calendar is usually designed to mandate and unify extended authority throughout the world of physical activity. Throughout many resource materials, it can be seen that the Nemontemi was to occur in more than one area of the year depending on which culture the year cycle belonged to.

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In any case, what we can surmise here is that some form of symbol pertaining to the concept of ‘an incremental blank day’ or ‘annual time-filler’, was indeed symbolically alluded to within this last part of the Mesoamerican Calendar Year. We have just tried to show that traditionally these 5-days were not actually ‘blank’ but instead more or less transparent in their nature, with the given tonalli-sign that transpired beneath them as being ritually muted due to the lack of any ‘360-day ilhuitl ceremony’ to compliment it. The evidence shows that the required existence of the 5-Nemontemi was the result of the incongruencey that exists between a ‘360-symbolic year or (ilhuitl-year)’, and the recurring 365-days in the natural year. Yet, because the natural year is actually 5-hours, 49-minutes, and 12-seconds longer than 365-days long, we then have a 366th day every four years, which must also be accounted for.

It is the knowledge of this 366th day, which has led some researchers to suggest that perhaps it was the tradition of the Natives of Mexico to balance out the difference in annual time, by adding an extra 6th Nemontemi at the end of every four years. This idea is very controversial, and is actually debated by various authors in the 5th Book of the Florentine Codex, which was written in the late 1500’s CE. It is still currently believed however that this procedure is not practical to the consistent nature of astrologic ceremonial time as the Natives perceived it. Furthermore, if this were indeed ancient ‘tradition’ it would have in this case probably been outlined specifically as being a tradition. For example, what we would have been reading this whole time is something to the effect described below in this fictitious example created by this author for examination:

“At the end of every first year of the south, in the year of the Rabbit, a 6th Nemontemi commenced to close the true nature of that year.”

However, we never see a statement like that because ‘the year’ is not necessarily what they were measuring with this form of calendar. What they were measuring was a 52-year cycle, referred to as an “Omepoalxihuitl,” in Nahuatl, and not simply a year. What we do see however, is examples of literature like that which are taken from Book 5 of the Florentine Codex, which seeks to insinuate, and indeed suggest the possibilities of Native calendarictic tradition based on the various rumors and conjectures of the day:

They observed a feast every four years, in honor of the fire, during which they pierced the ears of all boys and girls; and they called it Pillahuanaliztli. And during this feast it is likely, and there are conjectures, that they held their leap year, reckoning six days of the Nemontemi.

Florentine Codex: Book 5 p.144
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If the Tonalpoualli was to be halted every four years, for just one day to account for the passage of the 6th Nemontemi, then the astrologic flow of time in relation to the rest of the calendar and its numeric proportions would be severely hampered just in the name of a four year correction, and also as well, the four counts would no longer correspond as traditionally intended, and so for that matter the whole idea of a sixth Nemontemi must indeed (and should) be ruled out. However, there is to be no doubt that the Natives perhaps experimented with such an idea at one point or another, since these mathematical elements of time extrapolation were constantly being reviewed and experimented with.

Moreover, it can also be easily extrapolated that after long periods of time that one full day every four years is actually too many for the case of this 52-year calendar. And just so, as in the case that we are soon to see and discover, it would also be true to say that by adding 13-days every 52-years that this would also be too many days, since again the amount of extra days left over every 52-years is only 12.5944-days, not 13-days. Therefore, there must be an alteration of some sort, since a consistent 13-day’s every 52-years would eventually take us far from the intended precision of natural time.

Furthermore, there is still yet other evidence to show that a 6th day every fourth year really is not practical, simply with the admission that the annually leftover 5-days were in actuality ‘transparent’, and not necessarily blank. If indeed we were to add a 6th day (or Nemontemi) every four years, then that particular symbol for that day would have to be absolutely blank. There could be no 260-day tonalli traversing beneath the ‘blank essence of that 6th day’.

Above in the pictographic example we see within the top column the Nemontemi date of 9-Jaguar, which helps to end the year 1-Reed as being the 361st day of that year. The tonalli signs are diminished to express their ceremonial transparency during these last 5-days of the year. Below that in the 2nd column, is the Nemontemi date of 10-Rain serving as the 361st day of the year 2-Flint. Below that is the Nemontemi date of 11-Lizard, being the 361st day of the year 3-House. Finally, the Nemontemi date of 12-Water would serve as the 361st day of the year 4-Rabbit, and theoretically serving here as the ‘4th-year’ in which the 6th Nemontemi might appropriately have fallen within. However, because the 365- ilhuitl dates, and the 260-tonalli dates are to always be remaining connected throughout each 52-year cycle, there really could not ever be any “Blank 6th Nemontemi Date,” since this would throw the rest of the 52-year cycle off. Furthermore, 1-leap date added every 4-year’s would prove to be too many for this 52-year cycle, especially over the course of 1,000’s of years, as in the case of a 5,200-year cycle, and even in a 520-year cycle.
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If so, and the Tonalpoualli was allowed to traverse in its normal course after adding a ‘completely blank 6th Nemontemi-date’, this would then destroy the inherent order that links all four counts of the Metztliapoualli, with the ilhuitlpoualli, to the Tonalpoualli, and finally over to the Xiuhpoualli as well. This order can be expressed in the exemplified statement that: The first day of the year of “1 Reed,” is to be the tonalli-day of 13-Jaguar, and as well-being the 1st day of the first 20-day month of “Atlcualco,” or (Abandon Water); a fact which is always true, and even can be said to happen on (or around) the date of February 22nd of the Gregorian calendar, within every 52nd Mesoamerican year of 1 Reed. (See 1-Reed Diagram for the year 1519 C.E. below)

Indeed, it was the matter of containing and preserving the intended order that links all 4 counts together within a 52-year cycle that was of paramount importance to the Natives, and was to be specifically achieved during the New Fire Ceremony. Furthermore, part of that intended order, besides the traditional linkages of the calendar cycles and how they fit together was also to be found with a consideration for how those orders of the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles fit in with the motion of the tropical year, within the form and continuity that we now customarily know as the four seasons. We know this is true, due to the location of the New Fire Ceremony being held at the time of the year when the Pleiades climbed to the zenith around the time of midnight, which is known most certainly to be mid-November. This fact has been expressed in more than one post conquest document.

If this were not to be a ceremony that reinforced the order of the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles with the movement of the tropical year, then this ceremony would soon miss its mark and no execution would at all be necessary. To compensate for this fact, opponents of the ‘Corrected Count Theory’ tend to imply somehow, (but without actually insisting) that it was a typical observation of the Pleiades in the center of the heavens during the time of November (yet somehow during the appropriate 52nd year) that had then signaled the execution of the New fire Ceremony. Yet, the opponents of the theory are still missing one very important response to all this activity, which was to come about through the execution of the Xiuhmolpiliztli every 52-year’s in the Mexica Azteca year of 2-Reed…this would be the answer as to ‘why’ exactly all this was going on?

For that matter, what is also not very well understood at all; is the fact that pertains to exactly which day on the Tonalpoualli that all this was supposed to have happened on. In truth, it is this very important fact about on ‘which day of the Tonalpoualli’ that the 52-year cycle ended, which is of a paramount importance to each individual ruling culture who oversaw authority of this ceremony within the various territories of ancient Mesoamerica. Because of the ritualistic differences of each individual culture, which would pertain to the Maya, the Mixtecs, and the Mexica, and among others as well, the final date settled on was to have varied, and even of course as we know, there was also a difference in the year that was chosen, which was known to have alternatively taken place within the year dates of 1-Rabbit, or 2-Reed, respectively in Central Mexico.

Number                                                           Year                                                Location

1. 1 Rabbit                                                     1090                                                Teocolhuacan

2. 1 Rabbit                                                     1142                                                Coatepec (Tollan)

3. 1 Rabbit                                                     1194                                                Huitzcol Apazco

4. 1 Rabbit                                                     1246                                                Tecpayocan

5. 1 Rabbit                                                     1298                                                Chapultepec

6. 2 Reed                                                       1351                                                Tenochtitlan

7. 2 Reed                                                       1403                                                Tenochtitlan

8. 2 Reed                                                       1455                                                Huixachtecatl

9. 2 Reed                                                       1507                                                Huixachtecatl

Source: Tena 1987; 98 CE-MES-01-New Fire.pdf p.169

The general scholarly consensus is that the Mexica-Azteca moved this ceremony from the year 1-Rabbit, over to the year 2-Reed, sometime before the founding of their empire of Tenochtitlan in 1375 CE. However, the bases of these records are found only in the written accounts that were corroborated with other reports made by the Spanish at the time. In truth, the 2-Reed rendition of the Xiuhmolpiliztli is based on the ending of that particular “2-Reed 52-year cycle,” (specifically) on the date of 4-Movement or, “Nauhui Ollin,” the same deity-date-name, which is featured on the face of the Aztec Sunstone.

Meanwhile, it is well known (or at least should be surmised) that a tradition of the sun as being named as the deity “4-Movement,” goes quite far back into time with the Mixtec cultures, and probably had been only recently promoted even more extensively by the Mexica as a matter of their expanding political policy. If in the case that the Mexica-Azteca were in fact the principal first culture to celebrate the last day of the 52-year cycle on the day 4-Movement, than no doubt this decision was to be influenced by a long line of decisive deductions with regards to surrounding traditional and mythological themes, and astronomical movements as they were derived historically from the surrounding territorial traditions throughout Central Mexico.

Historically, it is said that in a year called 1-Rabbit a great famine had occurred, which was later to be called “Necetochuiliztli,” which had earned the name and reputation of this year with much dread. For this reason, it was said that the Mexica had decided to move the New Fire Ceremony over to the next year of 2-Reed (which often implies the next ceremony of the year of 1507). However, it can easily be shown that there are other mathematical procedures involved in the decision, which would have then amounted to something of a revolution in local time keeping, but exactly when this happened can not ever be verified; and may in fact in reality owe to a much more ancient Mixtec tradition that involves the "Ollin Constellation Glyph." With respect to the illustration above from the Codex Barbonicus, it is often said that an artistic implication was being made specifically with regards to a "Panquetzaliztli New Fire Ceremony." However, any such artistic implications are probably the result of a reference of the New Fire Ceremony as belonging to the jurisdiction of the Mexica and their territory of the Templo-Mayor, which had served them in the past as the particular precinct where the New Fire Ceremony was performed. Moreover, as a center of the region this temple was amoung the first precincts to receive the new fire after it had been lit atop the hill of Huixachtlan. http://www.famsi.org/research/graz/borbonicus/img_page32.html

Therefore, this author does not feel that such implications are actually granted because there simply is not enough information to point this out within the compilation of the Borbonicus Codice itself. But, in the case that this astounding feat in calendar practice was attempted at by Monteczuma in the year of 2-Reed, and within the Gregorian year of 1507, it is then believed by this author that in all probability the day 1-Reed would have been sought in order to close the old cycle perhaps to appease Quetzalcoatl, for whom of which was feared at this time due to overwhelming omens and predictions made by the soothsayers. In order to reinforce this notion of probability, it shall be mentioned that the day 1-Reed fell on the last 20th day of Panquetzaliztli, as it always does in the year of 2-Reed. This ilhuitl date of "Cempoualli Panquetzaliztli," (20-Raising of Feathered Banners) would have then theoretically compounded the significance of such an extreme political act that would have overshadowed the common notion of traditional practice with regards to the New Fire Ceremony and its orientation with the date-sign of 4-Movement. While in collusion with a tonalli date of 1-Reed for its execution on 20-Panquetzaliztli, the event would have (theoretically) taken place on December 9th of that year of 1507 (Gregorian).

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The New Fire Ceremony Below and Beyond Central Mexico

Historically, in the case of the surrounding lowland Mayan tribes who somewhere in ancient Mexican history no doubt were also aware of this kind of a correction procedure (along with an assortment of other kinds of counting procedures as well) they would instead while in waiting for the nominal 12 or 13-days to pass, select a traditional closing date of 4-Ahau, for a New Fire Ceremony that was then to be drilled to reopen the next new cycle of 52-years on the opening midnight date of 5-Imix / 5-Alligator, just as the Pleiades (and the Hyades star-cluster) neared the zenith sometime around the date of Gregorian November 4th.

In the case of a (theoretically corrected) Mayan Long Count Calendar, it would have to be then taken into consideration that the Long Count must have also then been halted for the same amount of days in order to keep it within synchronization to the rest of the Corrected Calendar. But in the case that no such correction procedure of any kind had ever happened within a Mayan Long Count Cycle, then we can at least be sure that before such an extended astronomical cycle like the Long Count was ever developed that a correctional procedure of some sort was executed within the Mayan Calendar, since the descriptions of such a procedure are actually apparent in the formulation of the creation date of 4-Ahau / 4-Flower, which is to come about every 52-years in time of late October in the year of 2-Manik, and which has the Central Mexican counterpart in the form of the year of 1-Rabbit.

It is the idea that the Long Count could never (or should not ever) be willfully halted, which has recently lead experts in the field to doubt that the Maya would ever endeavor to correct their calendar – or rather perhaps instead that they did not possess a Corrected Count Calendar that was to run along side the linear count as a kind of companion. Surly the Maya were aware of such a correctional practice. For that matter, just because the Long Count seems to be an apparent linear count, does not mean that the Maya did not possess such a kind of cross reference to an ancient Corrected Count Calendar. It is quite possible that in Yucatan that this year of correction was referred to as “KIN TUN Y AABIL MA YA CIMLAL,” or ‘time stone year of painless death’. (Edmonson 1988:146)

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This is despite the fact that no inscriptions of this date have ever been found on any monuments, adding to the controversy of the existence of the New Fire (correction) Ceremony in the Mayan world. For that matter, it has also been referred to as the “Tunben K’ak,” ceremony. (Hunbatz Men. 2010: 87) while at the same time anyone currently who supports a correction procedure for the Mayan Calendar tends to come up extremely short in noting exactly when this would take place. If we examine the similarity in the year dates of 2-Manik and 2-Reed, it should also be noted that there is a specific correlation between the numbering of the Maya calendar year cycle, and the numbering of the Aztec Calendar year cycle. This correlation may indeed go beyond mere coincidence, and the intricacies of the correlation will perhaps be elaborated on later below in these treaties with more detail.

Along with the dates listed above, it must also be taken into consideration that there were probably many other undocumented New Fire Ceremonies all throughout ancient Mesoamerica’s political centers, which were designed for closing, and then for the reopening of the 52-year cycle when the Pleiades reached the zenith around mid-November. Fortunately, this is provable due to the fact that there is at least some documentation of a New Fire Ceremony tradition that was to take place within the ancient cultural region of Xochicalco, which is shown to have been executed on the day-sign-tonalli of ‘2-Serpent’, in the year “1-Rabbit,” and therefore correlating to a day happening around the time of October 19th on the Gregorian calendar. This particular New Fire may have been executed closer within the early hours of morning, and may have been specifically chosen for the specific connection to the tonalli dates of 1-Lizard, and 2-Serpent, rather than specifically a midnight Pleiades sighting.

It would appear that the intention here was to honor the deity of Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl as the “god who stands on the market place stars,” or the ‘Tianquiztli’ (Pleiades) by beginning the 52-year cycle on the day ‘2-Serpent’, and therefore ending the 52-year period on the day ‘1-Lizard’. Both of these signs have a close connection to Quetzalcoatl as the mover of the heavens, which will be explained in the upcoming chapter on Quetzalcoatl. Unfortunately, this particular New Fire Ceremony, which is estimated to have occurred around 650 CE. has erroneously come to be regarded by some as ‘the first New Fire Ceremony’, which is something of a specious conclusion since the idea is simply based on the conventional conviction that the preceding Mesoamerican cultures (including the Maya), never had to perform such a rite under the guise of their linear and unbroken calendars, which would have never had to be recalibrated. This in turn leads to an argument that the New Fire Ceremony was somehow a Central Mexican creation, when in fact the evidence and purpose of the ceremony points to an origin that harks to the very beginning of the astronomic Mesoamerican Calendar as a whole. Theoretically, this author surmises that it very well may be that the original New Fire Ceremonies had taken place at a time closer to 500 BCE, while the sun was centered in the middle of the Galactic Center in the autumn months.

The plate above is an inscription of one of the only recorded New Fire Ceremonies found at the ceremonial center of Xochicalco. On the stone carving are found the inscriptions of the year of 1-Rabbit, and the date sign tonalli of 2-Serpent.

However, even in the case that New Fire Ceremonies were being performed historically throughout all of Mesoamerica, this would not imply that historically they were all performed in the same manner, but only that they were performed in order to correct and recalibrate the calendar to the functionality of the seasons and the tropical year. For that matter, it is believed here that there was to be a strict conformance to the numerological formula, which would keep the Tonalpoualli aligned to the tropical year, and that this formula was known among most all groups, and as being as much of a calendar practice as any other cycle that was to be reinforced by it.

For this reason, it has here been concluded that the cycle of the Tonalpoualli was the same for most all of Mesoamerica throughout many regions, and throughout many centuries. It was only around the times that surrounded the ending of the 52-year cycle that some degree of inconsistency would have come about as a result of different dates, and years, being chosen among different cultures to end and begin the 52-year cycle with. After the corrections took their place every 52-year’s, then a normal consistency would be resolved for the Tonalpoualli throughout most of the land.
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The Mexican Xiuhmolpiliztli

The Mexican Xiuhmolpiliztli, or New Fire Ceremony is the result of an ancient inherited tradition. As was seen earlier with the demonstration of the generally accepted historical records, the Mexica-Azteca had moved the New Fire Ceremony over from the year 1-Rabbit, to the next following year of 2-Reed. And while the exact century for this ritualistic adjustment is to remain uncertain, what we can at least gain thru a more thorough study of the ‘Corrected Count Theory’ is a better idea as to exactly why they did this. The specific answer to this question of ‘why’ lies within the date-positions of the Tonalpoualli that are to be found within the years of 1-Rabbit, and 2-Reed respectively, within the Corrected Count.

The traditional reason for having in the first place ended the 52-year cycle in the month of November within the year of 1-Rabbit is probably due to the location of the “13-day week of 1-Movement,” (or Hun Caban, in Mayan) which occurs in mid-October within this particular year of 1-Rabbit. This year also has its corresponding Maya counterpart, which of course is the year “Ca Manik,” 2-Manik or (2-Deer) on the Mayan Calendar; since it was with this very same date-sign of 2-Manik that was traditionally to open and begin this year within the Mayan Calendar, within a combination with the first day of the year or ‘the seating of 0-Pop’. These two different Mesoamerican year dates of 1-Rabbit, and 2-Manik moved in a consistent correlation (within the Corrected Count Theory) all throughout the centuries of Mesoamerican time keeping as a signaling of the end of the 52-year cycle, and often happening within the ‘13-day week of 1-Movement’, which always occurred during the month of November at this particular time of these year cycles.

The above plate shows the two different years for the Corrected Count versions of the Mayan and Toltec Calendars, which demonstrates that the date sign tonalli of 4-Ahau / 4-Flower is to be found at the autumn position of the year when the New Fire Ceremony was to be executed on the midnight of November 5th in this case of the year 1298 CE. (See left part of diagram only). Just before this moment, and prior to the last part of the ceremony "13-Blank White Days" were added to realign the 52-year cycle to the tropical year. Also demonstrated above, is the date of October 6th (to the would be) October 19th of 1298 CE, (1-Rabbit), which was then to be the date sign tonalli of 2-Serpent, used apparently by the center of Xochicalco to initially celebrate their version of this sacred alignment rite. (See right part of plate above) and refer to stone carving diagram above before hand that demonstrates the 1-Rabbit year, with 2-Serpent date. Finally, again to the right it can be seen that this author has selected the two dates of 1-Dog to end the 52-year cycle of 1-Rabbit, and also the tonalli date of 2-Monkey to reopen it as found on the Gregorian dates of November 1st, and the 15th of November later to reopen it. It is true that the discrepancies between these three correction dates above would create proverbial "astrological grey areas," of difference; especially with respect to a 2-Reed New Fire Ceremony that was to be enacted 1-year afterwards.

The 17th sign of Caban or Movement, within the cycle of the 20-day Cempoualli has always been associated with the sun to some degree, within the history of the ancient Mesoamerican Calendar tradition. Within the fourth place of this 13-day week of 1-Movement, is contained the day 4-Flower, (Can Ahau, in Mayan) and which of course had been earlier within the Mayan tradition, identified specifically with the various cycles of solar renewal for the sun that are to be found at the different points within their Long Count Calendar. It will soon come to be understood that the original point of transformation for the Mayan Long Count Calendar, in fact hinges upon this 52-year ending date of 4-Ahau that is specifically found within the year of 2-Manik, and which correlates to the date of October 22nd within our Gregorian calendar. Pointing to the bases of an earlier tradition, this date would then go to prove that the Central Mexican custom of the New Fire Ceremony was absorbed from this ancient time-honored ritual that was used to correct the calendar in the more distant Mayan and Olmec worlds.

By the time that the other political centers of Central Mexico had later absorbed this tradition, there then came about certain modifications for the exact ending date for the calendar both as a necessity, and also as a matter of preference. One of these necessities may indeed hinge upon the exact timing of the midnight station for the Pleiades in the more northerly territories of Mexico, when the new cycle was finally to be reopened some 12 or 13-days later after the closing of a given 52-year cycle, in mid-November.

As mentioned, in the case of the Mexica-Azteca, this time-honored tradition had been initially absorbed from their neighbors within the valley of Mexico from a time when the New Fire Ceremony was taking place within the Central Mexican year of 1-Rabbit. One may speculate (as this author has done) that it is likely that the official Tonalpoualli ending date for this particular ‘1-Rabbit New Fire Ceremony’, which was eventually changed over to 2-Reed by the Mexica, had originally come about on the day “1-Dog,” every 52-years at a date located around November 1st within the Gregorian calendar. Some 12 or 13-days later, the new cycle would then reopen with the day “2-Monkey,” in mid-November, as the Pleiades reached the zenith at midnight, when at that moment a new fire was then drilled to initiate the new forthcoming 52-year cycle.

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This speculation is seen as being reinforced by the positioning of the two symbols of the Dog (Itzcuintli), and the Monkey (Ozomahtli), as they are to be seen on the Aztec Sunstone just above the division of the two heads of the delicately featured Xiuhcoatl’s, or Fire Serpents. And as well, by the placement and numbering of these two tonalli-date signs as they fall within the seasonal time of autumn in the year of 1-Rabbit; and for the fact that those dates correlated almost perfectly to the times of the following 2-Reed celebrations ending point, found just one year later. Finally as well, the former Xochicalco dates were oriented by the numbers 1 and 2 as well. It should also be mentioned that this idea had come after an earlier original consideration for that 1-Rabbit New Fire Ceremony, as having ended on the Date of 13-Water instead, and which is the 949th sign of the Tonalpoualli and for that matter may be related to the 9,490,000-days in a full 26,000-year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes.

These previous Central Mexican traditions had contained all the preliminary aspects of the New Fire Ceremony practice, which the Mexica-Azteca had sought to expound upon in order to further facilitate their political disposition among the growing populations of Central Mexico. The most important aspect of this inherited calendar tradition hinges upon the numbered year correlation of 2-Reed, in relation to the specific cycles of the Tonalpoualli that occur during this time. Within the study of this year cycle, it might become clear that the numbered year correlation indeed resembles that of the earlier Mayan Calendar traditions.

This observation comes about as a result of observing the two year counts of both the Mayan, and the Aztec at the time of the Spanish conquest. During that time of 1519 C.E. it is well known that the prevailing year sign for the Aztec calendar was to be the infamous year of 1-Reed. What is not so well known however, is the fact that within the Mayan calendar, the prevailing year sign demonstrates a crystal clear correlation to the Aztec Count through the situation of the year of 1-Manik having been opened some six months earlier, on the Gregorian calendar date of August 1st, 1518 C.E. (or July 22nd, Julian.)

This numbered year correlation should not represent a spectacular coincidence of any sort, and clearly this observable fact is to be deduced through the practice of simple mathematics. There are only two theories that can make any sense: First, the most prevalent and common consideration, which would be that specific Mayan Long Count Calendars have been allowed to slip backwards for the ‘1,507-year slip cycle’ since the time of 12 AD/CE (and even before that time), and which then by a spectacular coincidence, would have brought it into a perfect seasonal alignment with the Mexican-Aztec Count just as the Spanish were to have arrived. This specific seasonal alignment of the Mexica-Azteca Calendar is to be demonstrated through the schedules of Aztec ceremonies and their attendant symbolism's at the time of the conquest.

Finally, our second consideration would owe to the simplicity of this observable fact of the Corrected Count Theory, in which all political ruling cultures throughout ancient Mesoamerica were abiding by a strict numerological and astronomic theory of calendar corrections that were to be added every 52-year’s in the month of our Gregorian calendar of November, when the Pleiades reach the zenith at midnight; this was done in order to keep the Tonalpoualli aligned to that particular date within natural time.

Currently, a full assessment of how the numbered year correlation came about between the two counts of the Mayan and Aztec Calendars remains to be a convoluted detail owing to the slight difference of year-bearers between the two counts, which would seem to differ by one day. In other words, if the Mayan year is Manik or (Deer), then the Aztec year would generally be “Rabbit.”

Interestingly enough however, it can be pointed out that as far as the Tonalpoualli is concerned that there is actually to be a 27-day difference in the two year-bearers systems, which coordinate the numbered year correlation between the two counts. For instance, as shown above it is to be the day 1-Manik, which opens the year of “1-Manik,” on the Mayan Calendar, and that date happens to have also occurred only just 27-days earlier on the Tonalpoualli before the day 1-Reed / 1-Ben. Whether or not we can depend on this 27-day (1-Sidereal Lunar Cycle) difference as the preliminary reason by which the Central Mexican Year Calendar was founded on, it does nonetheless seem to be a good place to start, since when in following the Tonalpoualli 260-days later, would bring us towards a date in late spring, where some Central Mexican calendars were known to have begun their year. (Malmstrom. 1997: 207)

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The Mexica-Azteca calendar tends to convolute the simplicity of the year count by naming the year after the 80th day of the year, which is to be found on the Tonalpoualli in late spring, but yet starting their year in the time of the early spring of our February. Or, is it to be 260-days later on the 340th day of the year, which specifically mandated the name of that year on the last day of the 17th Metztli of Tititl? For that matter, there is some degree of discrepancy available to us, which confuses exactly which Mexica 20-day Metztli ended their year: was it Tititl or Izcalli? However, factually and in general, Izcalli is supposed to be acknowledged as the last Metztli or the eightieth 20-day month, which was recorded at the time of the conquest of Tenochtitlan in most all manuscripts including Diego Duran’s “Ancient Calendar”. However, later we will see that the more specific aspects of Duran’s chronology in that work reveal his annual New Year Date of March 1st to be the result of a frozen date method.

Interestingly enough however, it would be true to say that if the Mexica were indeed following the terminal dating rule, then certainly in late January where the 340th-day of their year is now located, and (when the 20-day period of Tititl ends); is where the 360th-day should be. But apparently, the Mexica may have corrupted this rule probably for certain reasons that pertain to the passage of the 5-Nemontemi falling within the early spring season as marked by the final 20-day months.

Whether or not this reestablished “New Fire Year Correlation” that can be found between the Aztec year of 2-Reed, and the Mayan year of 2-Manik, was specifically deliberate as a cultural inheritance is debatable. However, it would seem in fact that the establishment of the Aztec creation date, which was found with the last day of the 52-year cycle as being “4-Movement,” was indeed to be to some degree inspired, and absorbed from the former Mayan tradition, although it was no doubt established much earlier with the Mixtecs due to the evidence of the specific stellar iconography presented to us through the Ollin-Movement symbol, which would indicate that this symbolism is quite ancient.

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With the establishment of Mayan’s earlier creation date called 4-Flower, or (Can Ahau), which takes place as being the 4th sign within the 13-day week of 1-Movement, or (Hun Caban), and which comes about on the 94th day of the year 2-Manik, and is also the Haab date of 13-Sec or, (Skull), an early regulation can be seen coming forth from the ancient Maya, which would probably have been maintained and guarded since the time of the Olmec’s, and perhaps the Izapan cultures. This would have lasted for many ages, and verified the intent of those ancient ancestors who initially organized the principals of the New Fire Ceremony as a correction procedure that was to take place in the autumn months.

But because this ceremony is here examined as being extremely ancient, then for the case of the zenith Pleiades passage, the ceremony may have in fact occurred earlier in the evening due to the situation of precession around the time of what might have been 500 BCE, when the sun was to be originally found within the core of the Galactic Center in those autumn times. This would imply that as the sun set on the last day of the 52-year cycle, that the star Sirius was immediately to be seen rising in the east. The Pleiades would be well on their way to the zenith, and arriving there by probably about 9:00PM in those distant times.

Both dates of 4-Movement, and 4-Flower/Ahau, naturally have the ‘number four’ in connection with their symbolism. From the Aztec tradition we know that the number four, or Nauhui, was associated with the sun god Tonatiuh, and that this number four symbolism also provided the basis of a tradition that numbered the four other previous creations or ‘suns’, which also were each ascribed to the number four as they are to be found on the face of the Aztec Sunstone, and found within the partitions of the astronomical symbol of 4-Movement, which is supposed to be the fifth and last creation or sun

It is no accident that the Mexica-Azteca had been able to locate the last day of their own 52-year cycles, on the date-sign-tonalli that relates to the eminence of the sun god Tonatiuh, now known famously as being “4-Movement.” For in reality, common traditional observances of the Tonalpoualli would have allowed them, or anyone else to see this possibility long beforehand, and within the commencement of establishing their new tribal presence within the valley of Mexico, they sought a new creation date for which to build a new political agenda upon.

This in turn would demonstrate a new (or old?) cosmology that is of course to be found within the basis of the Aztec Sunstone, and would then become the new (or renewed) indoctrination throughout the land. This idea was probably loaned and explained to them by their cultural superiors who keyed them into the ancient traditions of ancient Mexico long before the Mexica made their final arrival from the north. The basis of the Ollin glyph, standing for “Movement,” is stellar was earlier mentioned, and implies an ancient knowledge much older than the Mexica-Azteca themselves.

With such knowledge, they sought this political positioning purposely, and with their agenda to rise above all other city states within the valley of Mexico, the Mexica-Azteca then continued to carry out the occupation and pivotal position of an overriding political cosmology through the control of the New Fire Ceremony. This was done in part by ending the 52-year cycle on the day “4- Movement,” specifically in the year “2-Reed,” which is a time in which that particular tonalli-date of 4-Movement is to be seen taking its place in autumn within its designation of the 20-day month of Quecholli. This all happens within what we now recognize as the Gregorian calendar month of November, when the Pleiades reach the zenith around midnight.

While the date of 4-Movement or ‘Nauhui Ollin’ was anticipated as the end of the cycle, and for that matter potentially the end of the world (in political terms), it is then clear that the true essence of the 52-year ceremony was an effort that was initially engineered for the purpose of realigning the calendar, which required an altering set of 12 or 13-days every other 52-years. Therefore, it can be surmised that it was these ‘blank sets of 12 and 13-days’, which were added every other 52-year’s, which had generated the apprehension of the world and the sky falling in on itself – along with and coupled by the anticipated and feared activity of earthquakes. Just as in the case of the 5-Nemontemi, it was the quantity of the ‘empty days’ that caused the apprehension and the need for pause. This blank altering set of 12 and 13-days, added in every other 52-year’s also then places special emphasis on the meaning of the 104-year ceremony, which was called the “Ce Huehuetiliztli,” meaning, ‘one old age’.

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With regards to the meaning of this particular ceremony, which brings together two 52-year cycles, we might also apply the meaning of the moon to the numerological basis of the New Fire Ceremony, when we take into consideration the idea given earlier within the chapter on ‘Structure of the Calendar’, which had attempted to show that the Tonalpoualli is at least to some extent related to the amount of space-time that the moon traverses in one 20-day month, which is 260°.

Coming to this realization, it only made enough sense to discover how many degrees that the Moon approximately traverses in one year, which would be about 4,680° of space-time. Timing this number by four or (4-years), gives us the amount of an approximate 18,720° of annually traversed lunar space by the moon upon the ecliptic, equitable to 52 X 360°. Finally, when we times this figure by two, in order to equate to a period of ‘eight years of traversed lunar space’ we get the figure of 37,440° of approximate traversed lunar degrees of space or 104 X 360°.

Understanding as we do that in the period of eight years that there are almost exactly five cycles of Venus of 584-days, we then we might come to a sort of realization that points to the possibility that the Ce Huehuetiliztli, is related to the 5-fold Venus cycle of 8-earth years, which in turn generates about as many lunar degrees being (37,440°), and then therefore shares a common equation with the amount of days in an actual 104-year period, being 37,985.18 days. Of course, the difference between the two figures is rather high with a number of 545, which might be seen as being 40-days short of a standard Venus cycle. In this case, the lunar degrees are at least providing us some aspects of interrelatedness with the other cycles.

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Despite hard evidence for this mysterious cycle, many remain determined in discovering the bases of the 52-year cycle, which for all of its connections to a Venus alignment may nonetheless owe a great deal more to the planetary cycles of Saturn, which will be explored more in the chapter on the Mayan Count.

The more exoteric and standard realization of this 52-year time period invites the knowledge of a set of 65-Venus cycles of 584-days, which amounts to 37,960 days. The difference between the two figures of 37,985-days (actual years) and 37,960-days (65-Venus cycles) is in fact 25-days, (or 12 plus 13-days), which are specifically to be the amount of intercalary days, added every 104-year’s within the Corrected Count. The Venus cycle would therefore be tending to be show itself more and more within the 104-year period.

   The other standard realization is that in the time of 104-years, or 37,985-days, there comes about two cycles of the 52-year count, which brings into an alignment the 146-cycles of the Tonalpoualli, with the 365-day count of the ilhuitlpoualli, and a principal position of Venus that is usually only a matter of degrees away from its former position that was seen 104-years earlier. But what is not as yet fully understood or excepted currently, is that within any one 104-year period, any given tonalli sign will fall on the exact same day of the Gregorian calendar, which now currently in our time helps map the natural cycle of tropical year time better than any calendar we know. This is to say that if one were to live 104-years, and wake up on ones 104-birthday, then the particular tonalli date one would wake up to within the Tonalpoualli, (which is verified by this authors theory of the Corrected Count), would be the same tonalli-date, which one was born on within a period 104-years earlier. This is the same as to say in an example: that on January 3rd of the year 1900 CE, which was to be the date: “10-Reed, in the year 4-Reed,” was then also to be the same tonalli-date that was seen once again occurring on what was just recently January 3rd of 2004, which is of course a difference of 104-years.

Therefore, in order for this to happen, the rule is that when counting in the terms of every 52-year’s, the tonalli-date is then to occur one day earlier on the Gregorian calendar. The only way that this can happen is through the proper numerological application of the Corrected Count Theory, which is designed to compensate for true astronomical time, by realigning the position of the sun to the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles every 52-year’s through the appropriate intercalary correction dates. This is the ancient practice, not the modern theory. It should be kept in mind however that there are certain incongruities that exist within the mechanics of the Gregorian calendar that do throw this off to the extent that each Mesoamerican Year, over long periods of time must be measured independently along with any Gregorian year count to insure accuracy between the two.

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                                                                            The Toxiuhmolpiliztli Ceremony

The famous New Fire Ceremony or Toxiuhmolpiliztli, which was formally enacted every 52-year’s throughout all of ancient Mexico was specifically designed in order to keep the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles in alignment with the seasons of the tropical year. In order to do this, it was to have been observed traditionally throughout the a millennia of the Mesoamerican Calendar practice that a specific set of blank, intercalary days were to be added at the end of every 52-years in an alternating manner that would account for the discrepancies that exist between natural time, and that of the ‘artificially measured (astrologic) time’ as it was to be conducted through the “Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles,” (which may be said to generally represent the time of 52-vague years).

   It was the subject matter of these altering sets of completely blank (or white) days, which were at once the solution to the calendar and its ongoing supernatural astrological cycles, and yet at the same time it was these days that were also to become the superstitious subject matter pertaining to the destruction and dissolution of the world, due to the lack of any organized or measurable time frequency found within their passing. In the mind of the ancient Mesoamerican, this eerie lack of organization signaled potential catastrophe, and therefore it was up to the nobility to take control of the situation through a specific set of ritualistic acts that would once again lead to the perception of the Pleiades at the zenith at some oncoming midnight hour, to be found some two weeks later after the final day of the 52-year cycle. In a manner of speaking, this two week waiting period of blank white intercalary days, might be looked upon poetically as “13-days of Aztec Martial Law.”

   The Aztecs believed that the world had been created and destroyed four times, and that the current age (the “fifth sun”) would come to a violent end at the termination of a 52-year calendrical cycle. (Source Taube 1993) CE-MES-01-New Fire. Pdf p.157.

The above statement about Aztec Martial Law is to imply that by the time that the Mexica-Azteca had finally taken over the New Fire Ceremony that the populations of these later villages had become so immense that the nature of this particular ceremony had been transformed tremendously, as say when it would have been compared to a more conservative New Fire Ceremony, which might have been practiced by the Maya or any another Mesoamerican community found many centuries beforehand, due to the smaller contents of human population that were to be found within those earlier times.

As the rightful masters of the later Xiuhmolpiliztli, the Mexica-Azteca had fought for this political advantage by conquering the better part of ancient Mexico altogether. For that matter, as we had seen earlier, the transformational switch from executing the ceremony in the year of 1-Rabbit, over into the year of 2-Reed may have indeed taken place in the year 1351 C.E. as a matter of indicating or at least initiating what was to become their newly founded authority within the valley of Mexico, and therefore bringing the last day of the 52-year ceremony to conclude on an early Gregorian November date of 4-Movement or, “Nauhui Ollin,” as it is found within the years of 2-Reed. This then thereby became the symbol of their intended cause within their emerging political campaign to conquer any and all available territories and feed the sun.

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It is the subject matter of this final autumn position of the date sign of 4-Movement, which is also of a special significance with regards to the recurring 20-day seasonal Metztli cycle of “Quecholli,” meaning, ‘Red Spoonbill Swan’ that gives the New Fire Ceremony an even more of an elemental ceremonial context. Red Spoonbill was the fourteenth 20-day month, which had occurred 260-days after the New Year, and which was specifically ruled by the ancient hunting god Mixcoatl (also known as Camaxtli) within the Mexica-Aztec calendar tradition. Mixcoatl is the ancient aboriginal hunting god of the North and Central American plains, whose skills in survival included the art of hunting and the knowledge of drilling fire.

The gods association with a 20-day month during this autumn time of year was due to the reenactment of the traditional hunting seasons that were to take place in the wake of the dwindling agriculture season. The association of the Red Spoonbill or, “Tlaquecholli,” is exoterically said to be related to the birds return from the North during the winter season. Also however, esoterically, the birds head and spoonbill beak are in fact to be seen around among the stars of the Galactic Center, in the area where the sun enters this constellation during the winter months. For that matter, because the word Mixcoatl has been interpreted to mean “Cloud Serpent,” in relation to the Milky Way constellation, it could therefore be said that these two images of the Cloud Serpent, and the Red Spoonbill are actually interrelated, especially since the meaning of the word Quecholli relates specifically to this birds serpentine neck.

The god Mixcoatl also specifically had his counterpart in the constellation of Orion, which rises in the east at this time of year. Within the manuscript of the “Book of Gods and Rights and the Ancient Calendar,” written by the Spanish priest Frey Diego Duran in the late 1500’s, there is written proof to the statement that the hunting god Mixcoatl had his counterpart in the constellation of Orion although it cannot be stated with certainty how far out of alignment that Duran’s Calendar might have slipped out of with the original Mexica-Azteca Calendar that came about in the conquest year of 1521 CE, since it appears that Duran’s Chronology was based on a frozen date concept, which placed the New Year on March 1st:

The Indians imagined that they could see this figure in the heavens representing the sign of this month. According to our own monthly calendar, this feast fell on the 16th of November. (Frozen Julian date for late 1500’s C.E.)

                                                                           Frey Diego Duran: Book of Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar p.455



   However, despite the benefit of native informants, Diego Duran nonetheless erroneously interprets the meaning of the word “Quecholli,” as representing the idea of ‘Flying Arrow’ in reference to the ejected spears and propelled darts of hunters in the field of game. Despite Duran’s error, the Milky Way itself was nonetheless conceived as an arrow within the cosmologies of Mesoamerica, wherein the constellation of ‘Cygnus the Swan’ is conceived of as being the pointed tipped head of that celestial arrow, and which in turn was to be seen piercing through the skies and headed towards the Galactic Center, from out of its source of origin that is to be found within the star Sirius, which was a star that was held in comparison with the likes and nature of the planet Venus within Mesoamerica.

Duran remembers the 20-day month of Quecholli as the solemn feast of Mixcoatl, and as a time in which game, not men were sacrificed. This conclusion would help reinforce the notion that Mixcoatl is a symbol of the original ancestor who taught man how to survive through the game of hunt, and above all how to drill fire. For that matter, Mixcoatl is also a symbol of the original ancestor who brought the first religion to mankind, in the form of offerings that are made to the gods in exchange for the gifts of sustenance brought about through the resources of nature. Hence, this would mean that before the sacrificed game could be eaten by man; that first there must be an offering that was made to the gods in order to justify the ongoing acquisition of sustenance. For this reason, there has been much justifiable speculation that it was the offering of sacrificed animals (especially deer) that had eventually led to the practice and religion of human sacrifice, found both within Mesoamerica and abroad.

Since the 14th Metztli of Quecholli served as the particular 20-day month that was to finally end the 52-year cycle on the day 4-Movement, then the appropriate ‘ilhuitl-date’ for this last moment of the 52-year cycle was then to always be “Nauhui Quecholli,” or, 4-Red Spoonbill. This ceremonial Metztli-date serves specifically to honor Mixcoatl as the god who first drilled fire, and thus who brought the current world into existence. However unfortunately, due to the meanderings of misinformation that are supplied by the Spanish around the time of the conquest, there remains to be no clear-cut picture that can help us resolve a perfect chronological scenario of the historic New Fire Ceremony and its ritual.

Erroneously, many sources imply somehow that all of this political redirecting, which took place during the Xiuhmolpiliztli somehow happened within the narrow 24-hour period of the last day of 4-Movement. Such a conclusion is incomplete however, because it has been shown clearly that the 52-year Mesoamerican Calendar Cycle is actually 12.59-days short of true astronomical time. Therefore, in reality the last day of the 52-year cycle does not really end on the day 4-Movement but rather on the ‘last blank white day’; whether that cycle was to be either a time of 12, 13, or even yes, “14-days long,” which is specifically a recent discovery by this author, and is to some degree to be backed up by archaeological evidence.

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The only way that the ceremony of the Toxiuhmolpiliztli could have theoretically ever been executed on the last midnight hour of “4-Movement, 4-Quecholli,” would be if the Mexica-Azteca were specifically adding intercalary leap year dates with the passage of every four years; that's the only conclusion, otherwise the Pleiades would not be in the same place at the approximate hour of midnight, and at the end of every 52-year century this stellar passage would continue to slip more and more out of proximity in accordance with the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles.

Furthermore, theoretically if this in fact was done, the astronomical calendar priests would have had to of known in which four year periods ‘not’ to add the leap year date, for in reality adding one day every four years within the time of a 52-year period is actually too many. Therefore, the only appropriate conclusion is that the Mesoamerican's historically waited a full 52-year’s before the intercalary dates were to be added all at once. This is specifically because it was not always to be the same amount of days for each 52-year period.

   Every 52 years, since the first ceremony was reenacted: People extinguished all fires and threw away most of their belongings. Women were closed up in granaries because if they remained in the open they could be transformed into fierce beasts who would eat men. Pregnant women wore masks of maguey leaves.

Miguel Aguilar-Moreno - Handbook of Life in the Aztec World p.299


  It is in reality hard to believe that such superstitious festivities would only last one day, especially since there was such a great amount of work to be done in way of refurbishing the city-state for the upcoming and renewed 52-year cycle that was to be executed with the Toxiuhmolpiliztli ceremony. The superstitious minds, and ritualistic habits of the natives could no doubt fill this long empty set of days with some sort of religious activity, especially since this was indeed a once in a lifetime experience. Also, it may be conceived that the interfering and intruding calamity was considered collective, and impending due to the outstretched length of these Blank White Day periods. Just as in the case of the 5-Nemontemi, it was the ongoing length of the time period, which foretold of danger and possible annihilation – not just one 24-hour period of uncertainty. Also, in the case of the pregnant women at that time who may have had to give birth during any one of the ‘blank white festival days’, their child then would simply have then been named after the 2-week event in some manner as is listed in the 7th Book of the Florentine Codex:


   And [as for] the pregnant women who had been feared, if any of them gave birth to and bore a child; if a boy was born as her child, they named him Molpilli, Xuihtlalpil, Xiuhtzitzqui, Xiuhlti, Texiuh, Xiuhtlatlac, Quetzalxiuh, Xiuhquen, etc. And if [it was] a girl, Xiuhnenetl, Xiuhcue, Xiuhcozol, etc.

Sahagun. Book VII Florentine Codex. p.31

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   There has also been word that within the ‘last five day period’ of the 52-year cycle that all fires were to be extinguished. Here, it is hard to believe that whole territories would actually always be cooperating, but as well it is also hard to believe that these people could survive without fire for a full two weeks, so perhaps the last 5-days of the 2-week engagement was indeed to be without fire? However, even here an allusion to such a drawn-out 5-day fire-less ritual tends to provide evidence that there was indeed a certain length of days involved, and was not carried out as simply as a spectacular one day event.

   With this mention of the 5-day fire-less ritual, it is now important to remember that the 5-Nemontemi was reserved for the last day of the year in the early spring; this is especially true in accordance with the practices of the Mexica-Azteca ritual calendar, whose numbered year of 2-Reed dictated the order and structure of events that were happening within this ritualistic 52-year cycle ending. Because of the additional intercalary dates that were added during the Toxiuhmolpiliztli ceremony, the following New Year of 3-Flint would be opened sometime during our Gregorian month period of February 25th, while on the other hand, the last year 2-Reed for that matter, would usually open on the Gregorian month period of February 13th.

  But in any case, for those years to be opened in early spring there must always have been a 5-day Nemontemi period as a matter of mathematical proportioning within the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles. Furthermore, this then discredits the idea that the Toxiuhmolpiliztli could ever take place with regards to the date 2-Reed, in the year 2-Reed, as is mentioned with (Moreno. 2005:) since the continuity of these two date symbols occurring at once can only happen in May (80th-day), or January (340th-day), of the Mexica-Azteca Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles specifically. But that doesn’t mean that fire could not be drilled at those times for some ceremonial reason related to the time of the year and its beginning.

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   Instead, the Toxiuhmolpiliztli was always carried out in the autumn months, and for the Mexica, within the 14th Metztli cycle of Quecholli, in order to honor the god Mixcoatl as Lord of the Hunt and the Fire Drill, and his relationship to the Pleiades in his stellar role as the then to be rising “Sky Hunter Constellation of Orion.” This indeed would therefore necessarily include the glittering essence of the brightest star in the sky, which we know as “Sirius,” and which as we have pointed out recently above, was regarded by the ancient Mesoamericans as having a simulacrum relationship to the planet Venus. Simply because the star Sirius was not mentioned in the Florentine Codex, does not mean that it was not there in Mesoamerica, and regarded as sacred. In fact, the whole meaning of the New Fire Ceremony hinges upon the brightness of the Orion/Sirius, Pleiades/Taurus, and Gemini stellar complexes, and others.

Of course, many people to this day wonder whether or not if it is at all possible that perhaps the 50-year period of the companion star Sirius-B around Sirius-A, has anything to do with the 52-year Xiuhmolpiliztli. While we could only ever speculate about such a notion, the fact remains clear that the brightest star in the sky Sirius was indeed to be inadvertently a part of this 52-year Mesoamerican drama, and that by the time of each passing 52-year Xiuhmolpiliztli, indeed, Sirius-B did cycle around its bright companion at this time, whether the Mesoamericans were aware of this astronomical phenomenon or not is questionable but nonetheless possible. In fact, within a period of 5,200-earth years, Sirius-B will orbit 104-revolutions around Sirius-A, indicating a numerological affiliation with the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles that is here worth noting, due to the current closing of the 5125.366-year Mayan Cycle. As well, in one full cycle of the precession of the equinoxes of 26,000-years, the numbered cycle between these two stars would amount to 520.

And when in the time of Montezuma, our years were bound, he ordered that indeed everywhere should be sought a captive whose name [contained the word] Xihuitl. Wheresoever [he was], this one was to be seized. And one was taken – a man from Huexotzinco, a well-born man. He was Xiuhtlamin, and became a captive at Tlatilulco. The captor was named Itzcuin, and henceforth he was known as and called “Captor of Xiuhtlalmin.” For on the breast of his captive fire was drawn by the drill, and all his body was consumed in the fire. And they made [the victim’s] image of pure amaranth seed dough, so that it might represent him; they set cooked grains of maize upon it, so that they could give it to the people to eat.


   Sahagun. Book VII Florentine Codex. p.31

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We can see that from the above paragraph that this “New Fire Captive,” was sought from the town of Huexotzinco, which was noted as sacred to the aboriginal hunters. In Frey Diego Duran’s Book of Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, there is given the description of the god Mixcoatl/Camaxtli in relation to the ceremonies of the 14th Metztli of Quecholli, and this hunting god’s idol and temple, which was located in the vicinity of Huexotzinco, and which the Mexica-Azteca were never able to conquer for have failing to ever steel the idol of that god from its sacred precinct. Of this god’s temple Duran writes:

The Temple of this god was most beautiful, a hundred steps high, so crowded with people and so well carved that it surpassed that of the city of Mexico in its beauty, in good taste, and in magnificence. At the top of the step stood a beauteous round chamber with a thatched roof, so finally and carefully worked that nothing better could be made of straw. This roof ended in a long peak, at the top of which stood a clay monkey done in a realistic manner.

Book of Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar p.143

At nighttime, as the priests climbed to the summit of the hill of Huixachtlan, south of Tenochtitlan (known today as Cerro de la Estrella), they observed the progress of a star group known by the Aztec as Tianquiztli, or “marketplace”; today the cluster is called Pleiades. Those who had remained in the city went up on their roofs and watched the sky attentively, hoping that the stars would reach the meridian and that the Sun would rise again the following day. At the moment when the stars reached the center of the heavens, the priests sacrificed a man by cutting out his heart. A fire priest then made the “new fire” with a drill-board upon the chest cavity of the sacrificial victim and carried the flame to wood stacked high on the platform. Through the use of the fire drill, the fire was thought to descend from the sky to the earthly center and permeate the earthly landscape through the Sun’s travels and ritual actions. In this case, if the fire flamed up, it was a sign that the universe would continue another 52-years. At this crucial moment during the ceremony, people cut their ears and even those of babies in their cradles. Then they would spatter their blood in the direction of the fire on the mountain. The priests then took the New Fire down the hill to the center of Tenochtitlan and the pyramid-temple of Huitzilopochtli, where it was placed in the fire holder of the statue of the god. The messengers, runners, and fire priests who had come from local regions took the fire back to the cities, where the rest of the common folk placed it in their homes after blistering themselves with the sacred fire.

Miguel Aguilar-Moreno - Handbook of Life in the Aztec World p.299




Certainly, the most curious aspect about this whole ceremony is the constellation of the Pleiades, and why in Mesoamerica that it had been referred to as the “Tianquiztli,” or ‘Marketplace Stars’. The answer to this question actually turns out to be quite convoluted, and buried within many levels of cosmology, and mythological history. However, we know that traditionally the Mesoamerican’s considered the stars of the firmament in general to be the souls of the dead ancestors. Within the fabric of Mesoamerican social cosmology, a long historic tradition records the existence of what the Mexica-Azteca referred to as “Chicomoztoc,” or, ‘The Seven Caves’, which symbolized their place of origin. In reference to the New Fire Ceremony as a symbol of beginnings, the Mexica-Azteca illustrated the act of leaving the Seven Caves through the symbolism of the Toxiuhmolpiliztli, and therefore portraying the exit of human beings from the center of the Seven Caves as the beginning of cultural time and mythological history – via the New fire Ceremony. (Moreno. 2005:)

   In this analogy, we are comparing the Seven Stars of the Pleiades, to the Seven Caves of tribal origins, and the once ancient, and now deceased ancestors who once lived there in those Seven Caves. In the Historia Tolteca-Chichmeca, there is a plate that displays the entrance to the 7-Caves of “Chicomoztoc,” at the base of the “Teocaluacantepec” or the ‘Sacred Twisted Mountain Top’ that shows the image of a bearded merchant holding a spear flanked by a bee. The mysterious concept of the 7-Caves in Mesoamerica really only turns out to be a stellar conceptualization, in which the 7-divisions of the Caves actually turn out to be the 364/5 days of the stellar year divided into seven sets of 52-days each, a division which may have come about as a result of observed Venus cycles.

Found within these 7-divisions of ‘earthbound-celestial space’, (or of the underworld) are the seven conceptual tribes of Mesoamerica, of which the Mexica-Azteca are one. The figure holding a spear is one of the ancient Pochteca or the traveling merchants who of which were also alternatively named the “Oztomeca,” which is a name relating them to the opening of caves. In reality, this figure may represent a contemporary version of the ancient Olmec, who long before hand initiated the hunter gatherers into the civilized world of culture and merchandising.

Thus in one version of interpretation, the observation of the Seven Stars of the Pleiades at the zenith every 52-years, recalls the first ancestral moment when the tribes first left the primeval Seven Caves to merge with the other surrounding encampments of high culture. Now, finding themselves in the midst of the practicing high cultures of religious worship, and tasks of economic trade through merchandising, the evolution of the seven original tribes now find themselves within the ritualized conflict and condensed friction that comes about through the customs of bartering, and through the other activities that are found in the mass marketplace.

So now, (in this analogy), the marketplace would come to represent a contemporary version of the socially collective Seven Caves, while theoretically the Pleiades star cluster represents the emergent evolution of the ancient ancestral tribe in the wake of an advanced economy, which is deliberately renewed in every 52-year’s as part of the meaning of the New Fire Ceremony as a mass tribal reunification and directive. Thus, what we have here is a theoretical version for the origin of the name of the Pleiades star group known in the Nahuatl as ‘Tianquiztli’, which helps to merge the progressions of cosmic cyclic time, with the idea of social economic stability.

This idea is somewhat reinforced by the ritualistic destruction of commercialized material items gained throughout the 52-year period, indicating that the New Fire Ceremony in this late hour of Mesoamerican Civilization had taken on extremely materialistic properties, which would be indicated by the dominance of this ceremony by the Mexica-Azteca who oversaw the governance of all merchandising throughout the land. In as much as the Pleiades were referred to as the marketplace stars, it perhaps could be said that the ceremony itself belonged to the ancient merchant's guild as they posed as the architects of contemporary high culture by being the source from which had come about traditionally through the ongoing exchange of goods, and ideas throughout the land, by the ancient traveling merchants who then became the purveyors of much knowledge that reinforced the growth and existence of all high culture.

For that matter, in Duran's work, the image of the ancient hunter god Mixcoatl/Camaxtli is presented as not only a Warrior-Hunter Gatherer, but also as a merchant with the conspicuous symbolism of the elongated nose mask, which belongs to the vanguard merchant god “Yacatecuhtli,” or, ‘Lord of the Nose’. This no doubt alludes to the role of the ancient Hunter-Gather as not only a traveler of great distances, but as well as being a man of knowledge who brings with him the gift of fire as the key symbol of man's survival in the wilderness.

The merchant classes were specifically worshipers of fire through the likeness of the Old Fire Lord, Xiuhtecuhtli and his many avatars. By default therefore, Mixcoatl is acknowledged as the origin of this ancient fire, and would be in fact the source origin of the symbolic “Xiuhcoatl,” or ‘fire serpent’, which is garnished with ‘the Pleiades encrusted snout’, and often to be seen on the back of Xiuhtecuhtli as his key symbol. For that matter, again the word Mixcoatl is often to be acknowledged as referring to the illuminated fires of the Milky Way Dragon as it courses about through the heavens, while the Pleiades turn out to indicate the source of another “Celestial Dragon,” which resides within the ecliptic. (This Authors specific personal re-discovery of the Xiuhcoatl as of December 8th 1989.)

Interestingly, while the fire board and drilling stick are indeed the symbol of an outgrowth of an ancient technological knowledge relating to the creation of fire, in truth the first fires that were historically ignited were to be done through the ‘frictional clashing of two flint rocks’. We should be well aware of the fact that the word ‘Tecpatl’ in Nahuatl means ‘flint rock’, and not specifically the form of a knife, which is the traditional tool that is instead known as ‘Itztli’. Therefore, the 18th-tonalli sign of the Cempoualli is indeed affiliated with the creation of fire through the clashing friction of the two flint stones that emit a spark when hurled together.

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This aspect of conflagration deems an affiliation between the ruling war-deity of that specific 18th tonalli-date-sign of Tecpatl, which is the godhead, Chalchiuhtotolin, or ‘Jeweled War-Turkey’ and the friction that brings about the literal fires of flame; further to accord with the analogous ‘social fire’ of community interaction, and warfare. Note, as well that it is said that the wild turkeys are the remnants of a humanity that came about from the Third World of 4-Rain, which ended through a rain of fire. As we had seen above, in the struggle to understand the meaning of the Pleiades in Mesoamerica, we are probably best directed towards the meaning of the ‘social friction’, which is brought about through the bartering activities of the Nahuatl marketplace called Tianquiztli.

Therefore when considering the social implications of the marketplace, simply put the Pleiades may be a symbol of the New Social Fire, which was symbolically drilled historically, when the sun stood within the constellation of Taurus during the time of the spring equinox, some 5,200 years ago when theoretically the great Mayan Katun cycle had initially begun. This astronomical moment might just as well be the primeval social moment that represents the time when the earliest tribes had left the caves, since this is where the Pleiades and the sun had once stood together during the spring equinox over 5,000-years ago.

It is then worth taking note that when the Mexica moved the New Fire Ceremony over one year into 2-Reed, the emphasis was taken off of the day “5-Alligator,” for initiating the first day of the new cycle of the Mayan New Fire Ceremony; and was brought over instead to the day “5-Flint,” as the opening ‘midnight-day’ of the New Fire Ceremony, and thus for that matter inadvertently celebrating the original memory of the ancient primitive fire, which originally came about through the clashing of two flint rocks. Indeed, here in this passage we are finally to acknowledge that the Mesoamerican's also perceived the Pleiades as the tip of the flint knife, which can therefore also bear the meaning of ‘the original primordial fire’. Take special note that in East Indian stellar cosmologies, the Pleiades were referred to as the Krittica, meaning, ‘blade or sharp implement’. (Bahari.1990:178) The Mesoamericans believed that the flint-knife had a celestial origin, via its oval formation that was seen within the various heavenly constellation forms, and which for having been an apparition of light also reinforced the Flint knife's relationship with the original fire.

Above is the position of the moon in relation to the Pleiades at the zenith on the midnight of November 18th, of the year of 1507 C.E. at the moment of the lighting of the new fire of the Xiuhmolpiliztli, which opened the new cycle of 52-years with the date of 5-Flint in the year of 2-Reed, (Note: 5 + 2 = 7) on the 14th Metztli of 5-Quecholli. As can be observed, the Hyades star cluster here has become the mouth of a stellar Flint symbol, which was discovered by this author on the evening of October 2nd 2007, while leisurely gazing at the constellation of Taurus. The famous painting shown earlier above is from the December 1980 edition of National Geographic magazine, which expresses this particular full moon ceremony from that particular year of 1507 CE, which took place at the peak of Huixachltan where Monteczuma hosted the last New Fire Ceremony, and who is there seen wearing the Xiuhcoatl or (Fire Serpent) Headress. Just before this particular ceremony, which took place at midnight, "14-Blank White Days" were added to the tally of the calendar count, to realign the Mesoamerican 52-year cycle to the motion of the tropical year.

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                                                                                                 Before and after the New Fire Ceremony

   An example of such a calendar pilgrimage comes from the account by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl in the early colonial period of the Toltec Relaciones. He mentions two early “calendrical congresses” convened in 37 B.C. and AD 129, in which calendar priests adjusted the solar calendar to the equinoxes. (Aveni and Calnek 1999:91-92, quoting Jimenez-Moreno 1954-1955;225) during the latter meeting on the fall equinox (a day 1-Flint in the Aztec Calendar) in A.D. 129, “Toltec sages, astrologers and masters of the other arts, assembled in their capital city of Huehuetlapallin, where they examined the happenings, calamities and movements of the sky since the creation of the world, and accomplished many other things… among which was the adding of a leap year in order to adjust the solar [i.e. calendar] year to the equinox…[and] it had been 166-years since the time that they had adjusted their years and times with the equinox.” (.ibid).The location of Huehuetlapallin has been tentatively identified as the Olmec region near Coatzacalos in southern Veracruz (ibid.).

   Prudence M. Rice: Maya Calendar Origins p.195


   All throughout a collective study of Mesoamerican Calendars, one will from time to time come upon certain materials, which allude to the correction or alteration of the Mesoamerican, and Mayan Calendar Cycles, which often seems to temporarily justify a cause to realign the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles with the seasons of the year. In Vincent Malmstrom’s book: “Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon,” Malmstrom points out that Thompson had claimed to know the exact point at which the Maya perhaps had corrected their calendar by 1-day in the 671 (CE?). (Malmstrom. 1997: 136)

In the above example, borrowed from Prudence Rice’s “Maya Calendar Origins,” we see an example of a similar such claim, which does not end up in going too far to prove much at all. In fact, how can we be sure that the idea that is presented above was even ever in the first place related over to Fernando de Alva Cortes Ixtlilxochitl in such a precise manner, like that which comes to us from his work in the “Relación histórica de la nación tulteca,? In short, how do we know (based on the dates, and extended time periods) that the claims for these events are even really true? We don’t, and for that matter the citation might just as well be compared to cultural mythology.

As far as the dating is concerned, with regards to the “Aztec Calendar,” and the date 1-Flint, and the fall equinox claim is to be also concerned, the reality of the matter would go to show within the Corrected Count that the date 1-Flint did fall within reach of the of the Autumn equinox, in the Aztec Year of “2-House,” although in actuality about 20-days afterwards on about October 10th of 129 CE. However, considering the exercise that the dates are here being recited for, it may hardly even be worth mentioning, since the procedure behind the Corrected Count Theory would eliminate such a historic theoretical scenario by simply correcting the Calendar every 52-year’s during the New Fire Ceremony, ever since the Calendars ancient inception, and not just in every time that we might have the rare opportunity to relive the speech of official Mexican ancestry.

The former date of 37 BCE corresponds to the year 6-Flint of the Corrected Count, with the sign 11-Reed falling on the September 23rd, of that year. Keep in mind that these dates here sited above for the Corrected Count happen in their same places every 52-year’s. Therefore, no further corrections would ever have been needed at any other time except at the commencement of every 52-year period. Also, it might as well be noted that in the year 4-Flint, (144 CE) a 15-years difference, that the date 1-Flint is indeed to be found at the Autumnal equinox.

Interestingly enough, the former year date of September 23rd, 37 BCE, upon the GMT-correlation then turns out to be 7-Rabbit / 7-Lamat, while the latter date of September 22nd, 129 CE turns out to be 5-Flint / 5-Etznab on the GMT-correlation. Not exactly what we were looking for in way of exact, or precise correlations with Ixtlilxochitl’s writings, which were to have supposedly brought about the proper alignment of the equinox’s, along with the Mesoamerican Calendar Year Cycles so long ago. It would appear here to this author that there was simply some degree of political advertisement going on to satisfy the need of the Spanish to believe in a leap-year date for the Native Calendar, simply because they were so hard in the true attempt for acknowledging just exactly how the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles had worked in the first place; thus making it necessary to verify the Spanish need for a conditional logic with regards to the counting of time, just as was seen earlier above with the conjectures about the theoretical leap year correction supposedly applied every four years in the works of Sahagun’s 5th Florentine Codex.

We currently share this kind of westernized conditional logic, and in fact it can be said that we have inherited it from out of our European ancestor’s perspectives. It does not make sense to us that there would ever be a calendar that is deliberately stopped, only to then be started up again, even in the case that it is demanded that astrological forces are to be acknowledged as the priority in the realignment process. Instead, to us it would seem that for those kinds of forces to be effective at all that an unbroken, continuous, and ongoing kind of consistency would be needed for their usefulness.

In the case sited above, the solar year is given priority as though it somehow had come out of alignment with the rest of the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles, like a proverbial Julian calendar – I find this doubtful. During the first time I had ever read these statements, it seemed that we might have found the bases of the 1-Reed / 1-Manik spring equinox alignment on the date-sign-tonalli of 1-Alligator / 1-Imix. However, it is probably of no use, and it would appear to me that the hidden hand, which initially executed the engineering of this incredibly complex form of astrological time keeping, goes beyond anything that is to be found written or engraved anywhere. As stated and demonstrated earlier, the mathematical functionality that exists between all of the Mesoamerican Calendar Cycles could never really be held together with such a ‘leap-year theory’, which is executed every four-years and therefore must be ruled out for most cases, although it is true that researchers have actually gone to show that such amendments are to be demonstrated in specific Mayan Codices, just as Bohm has attempted to demonstrate for the Madrid Codex. The major problem for these theoretical leap year calendars is that we will never know the difference about them, and therefore they can never be used or successfully reconstructed entirely.

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But then what are to be the true cause of these eventual slips in time discrepancies that concern the 20-day month cycles, which were to eventually occur within all of the Mesoamerican Calendars historically, and the within the passage of the actual natural year, (aside from the supposed ancient Mayan 1,507-year slip cycle), if these particular calendar slips that were occurring after the conquest were not originally to be taken care of with some form of correction procedure?

Naturally, the truth of our confusion in part lies specifically within the conquest itself, and the domination of the Spaniards over the Natives of Mexico, which were then eventually defeated over time into the broken fractions of their dwindling populations, which resulted in the observance of their withering religious ceremonies that eventually lost their meaning. Since the time of the conquest, and the eventual defeat of the natives, the Indians of Mexico attempted to realign their ceremonial behaviors to the various activities, and religious ceremonies that were ordained by the Spanish priests within the Christian Julian calendar ceremonies of those days.

Following this method, allowed for some degree of freedom to be exercised between the natives, whose traditional way of life was being systematically destroyed more and more each year. Important to this process of self-preservation, was the effort to keep the ceremonies of the Christian Julian calendar in step with the ceremonies of the gods of the Native Calendar of Mexico. In this way, the natives pretended to deceive the Spanish friars, who actually knew what was going on the whole time. But because of the inherent differences of the two calendars, efforts were being made by the natives to make the Native Calendar behave more like the Christian Julian Calendar, with the installation of leap years, and frozen dates that tied the beginnings of the Native New Year to a specific date upon the Julian calendar.
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This of course created some degree of discrepancy for the recognition and function of what was left of the Native Calendar. Furthermore, constant pressures from Spanish authorities were causing all of the efforts of the Natives to integrate the Christian rites with the Pagan lifestyles to dwindle down anyway. Since the time of the conquest, between 1519 C.E. and the year of 1559 C.E., a full 40 years had passed, and needless to say a great deal of change and hardship had transformed the Natives, and reasonably a great deal of their former traditional knowledge had been forgotten. When the time for the New Fire Ceremony had arrived in 1559 C.E. and which was to be found formerly by the Aztecs within their year of “2-Reed,” the needed ceremony that had been usually used to add the amount of days that would once again, realign the Native Calendar with the tropical year in all probability - simply did not occur…and perhaps with good reason.

If one considers the implications of having spent so much time in an effort to align the Native Calendar to the Julian Festivals, with frozen dates, and other calendarictic requirements such as leap years, and even incidences of changing the total functionality of the Native Calendar, then it is realized that the true need to align the 52-year cycle to the tropical year, really in practice was no longer required, since the inherent Native tradition was dwindling at such an alarming rate anyway.

In short these people had been converted to Christianity, and the more intricate efforts in maintaining the Native Calendar along with its astrology, and other pertinent rituals (some of which we understand had become very obsolete) were simply disappearing more and more over the years. The addition of a supplementary 12 or 13-days after every 52-year’s simply could not be accounted for, since the required personnel were no longer available to make this happen within the ever growing populations of converted Natives; they simply had no more authority. However, in the case that some effort was to be made to align the 52-year cycle, we should not for any reason be disappointed, or surprised that such efforts were never recorded or even successful for some reason. Anyone could have tried.
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But I should note however that thru the writings of Gordon Brotherston,(available through the Internet) that it has just been recently revealed to me that the New Fire Ceremony of 1559 CE was in fact at least ceremonialzed, alongside the recognized funeral rites of Charles V of Spain, who had died a year earlier in 1558. It was demanded of the world of New Spain, (formally Mexico) to take note of this occasion, which for chance then allowed the Natives to incorporate this funeral celebration within to the upcoming New Fire Ceremony that was approaching in the November of that year, at which time when usually the sight of the Pleiades at the midnight zenith would insight the ignition of a newly drilled fire.

This of course, traditionally was not done however, without first observing the initial passage of an intercalary set of days that was to align the tropical year with the 18-months of the Calendar year. But, with so much authority watching, and with so much change having taken place within the Native Calendar, and its fixed dates of arrival now to be found within the Julian counterpart, it was of course doubtful that these intercalary days were added in that ceremony of 1559, and rather it was probably simply just that…a ceremony, and a funeral for the deceased Charles V of Spain.

In reality, this 52-year tropical realignment was a reserved ceremony for the highest of dignitaries who ordered the community through this highly transformative period of the 52-year cycle by ordering the community to take action in refurbishing the city zones just before the height of the New Fire Ceremony, which was then finalized with the drilling of the New Fire at midnight when the Pleiades reached the zenith. In short this was the very statement of an ancient ritualistic authority, one that by the time of 1559 C.E. simply no longer existed.

When counting continuously from the date of August 23rd 1521 CE, (August 13th Julian), which is the key date of the surrender of Cuahatemoc to Spanish forces that was marked by the tonalli date of Ce Coatl (1-Serpent), we then come to the date of November 4th 1559 CE, which was the date of 4-Movement and marked the ending of that 52-year period that had began earlier in 1507 CE. As can be seen above, the placement of the 4-Movement date is placed perfectly for the recalibration of the calendar that would have happened 12-days later on November 17th, when the Pleiades reached the zenith to start a new 52-year era. The placement of the date 4-Movement on November 4th is not the result of a 1,507-year slip cycle, as this would imply that 1559 CE is the only time in 1,507-years that such an alignment of calendar and stellar coordinates could ever occur in. We know that this is not the case, due to both factors concerning the iconograhical implications, and the ritualistic procedures that were recorded in colonial documents, which indicate that the New Fire Ceremony (in this case) was maintained on the basis of the midnight sighting of the Pleiades at the zenith, which occurs in the time of November. The only way that such an alignment of factors can be maintained is thru the consistent addition of intercalery dates in an altering even / odd manner in every 52-years. However, the unique dates as they are shown above, are theoretically the result of an extra 14th-intercalry date having been added in the year of 1507 CE, above on p.18, which would go along with rule of adding an extra 14th-day in every 520-years. Exclusive discovery of the author.

All original information Copyright. 2011 Matlactli Omome Cuauhtli / Tonal Inquiry Mesoamerican Experiences