Toxcatl
Encyclopedia
Aztec calendar
The Aztec calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica....
which lasted from approximately the 5th to 22nd of May and of the festival which was held every year in this month. The Festival of Toxcatl was dedicated to the god Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca was a central deity in Aztec religion. One of the four sons of Ometeotl, he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty,...
and featured the sacrifice
Human sacrifice in Aztec culture
Human sacrifice was a religious practice characteristic of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, as well as of other mesoamerican civilizations such as the Maya and the Zapotec. The extent of the practice is debated by modern scholars...
of a young man who had been impersonating the deity for a full year.
The so called Toxcatl Massacre
The massacre in the Main Temple, Tenochtitlán
The massacre in the Main Temple of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was an episode in the Spanish conquest of Mexico which occurred on May 10, 1520....
, a turning point in the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Spanish conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...
, occurred when the Spaniards who were tolerated as guests in Tenochtitlan attacked and massacred the unprepared Aztecs during the celebration of Toxcatl. This caused the outbreak of open hostilities between the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
s and Spaniards, and during the Noche Triste a few weeks later the Spaniards fled the city.
Calendrics
The Aztec calendar was composed of two separate cycles - one of 260 days called the tonalpohualliTonalpohualli
The tonalpohualli, a Nahuatl word meaning "count of days", is a 260-day sacred period in use in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, especially among the Aztecs. This calendrical period is neither solar nor lunar, but rather consists of 20 trecena, or 13-day periods...
(day count) and one of 365 days called the xiuhpohualli
Xiuhpohualli
The Xiuhpohualli was a 365-day calendar used by the Aztecs and other pre-Columbian Nahua peoples in central Mexico. It was composed of eighteen 20-day "months," called veintenas or metzli with a separate 5 day period at the end of the year called the nemontemi...
(year count).
The 365-day xiuhpohualli consisted of 18 twenty-day "months" (or veintena
Veintena
A veintena is the Spanish-derived name for a 20-day period used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican calendars. The division is often casually referred to as a "month", although it is not coordinated with the lunar cycle...
s), plus an additional 5 days at the end of the year. Some descriptions of the Aztec calendar state that it also included a leap day
Leap year
A leap year is a year containing one extra day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year...
which allowed the calendar cycle to remain aligned with the same agrarian cycles year after year. But other descriptions state that the leap year was unknown to the Aztecs and that the correlation of the months to the astronomical year would change over time.
In any case, from the descriptions of Spanish conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
s who witnessed the celebration of Toxcatl in 1521 we know that in that year the feast fell in our month of May.
The name
According to Fray Diego DuránDiego Durán
Diego Durán was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, The History of the Indies of New Spain, a book that was much criticized in his lifetime for helping the "heathen" maintain their culture.Also known as the...
the name Toxcatl derives from the Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
verb toxcahuia meaning "wither from thirst". Toxcatl then means "drought". Many other meanings have since been proposed for the name - many having to do with the necklaces of grilled maize that were worn by the revellers during the festivities. The Aztecs also used the name Tepopochtli (smoking or fumigation) to refer to the month of Toxcatl. The name of the corresponding month in other Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n cultures often have to do with smoke, steam or clouds. The Otomi
Otomi language
Otomi is an Oto-Manguean language and one of the indigenous languages of Mexico, spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. The language is spoken in many different dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible, therefore it is in...
word for the feast was Atzbhipi, bhipi meaning smoke. The Kaqchikel
Kaqchikel language
The Kaqchikel, or Kaqchiquel, language is an indigenous Mesoamerican language and a member of the Quichean–Mamean branch of the Mayan languages family. It is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala...
name was Cibixic, meaning "cloudy smoke". The Matlatzinca
Matlatzinca
Matlatzinca is a name used to refer to different indigenous ethnic groups in the Toluca Valley in the state of México, located in the central highlands of Mexico. The term is applied to the ethnic group inhabiting the valley of Toluca and to their language, Matlatzinca.When used as an ethnonym,...
word for the feast however was Unditini meaning "we are going to grill maize".
The Festival
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
s carried out during the feast of Toxcatl are described by Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain . Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years conducting interviews regarding Aztec...
in the Florentine Codex
Florentine Codex
The Florentine Codex is the common name given to a 16th century ethnographic research project in Mesoamerica by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Bernardino originally titled it: La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana...
, in Fray Durán
Diego Durán
Diego Durán was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, The History of the Indies of New Spain, a book that was much criticized in his lifetime for helping the "heathen" maintain their culture.Also known as the...
s description of the gods and rites, and in the chronicle of Juan Bautista Pomar.
The most important part of the Toxcatl ritual was the sacrifice of a young man who had been impersonating Tezcatlipoca since the last Toxcatl festival, and the selection of a new man to take that role in the year to come.
The youth chosen to be the ixiptlatli (impersonator) of Tezcatlipoca was normally a war captive. He was taught courtly speech, singing and to play the flute. Throughout the year he would parade in the streets of Tenochtitlan and be treated with great reverence. His skin was painted black except for a ribbon across his eyes, he was dressed in precious jewellery and cotton embroidered clothes. He wore a snail-shell lip pendant, eagle down headdress, turquoise bracelets and golden bells on his ankles.
He walked about the city playing the flute, smoking tobacco and smelling flowers, and people would salute him as the living image of the god. At the building called Quauhxicalco he would sometimes burn copal
Copal
Copal is a name given to tree resin that is particularly identified with the aromatic resins used by the cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica as ceremonially burned incense and other purposes...
incense and play his flute. Several times during the year he would meet with the Aztec ruler, the tlatoani
Tlatoani
Tlatoani is the Nahuatl term for the ruler of an altepetl, a pre-Hispanic state. The word literally means "speaker", but may be translated into English as "king". A is a female ruler, or queen regnant....
, who would ritually adorn him. In the month of Huey Tozoztli which preceded Toxcatl, he would be ritually wed to four maidens who impersonated the goddesses Xochiquetzal
Xochiquetzal
In Aztec mythology, Xochiquetzal was a goddess associated with concepts of fertility, beauty, and female sexual power, serving as a protector of young mothers and a patroness of pregnancy, childbirth, and the crafts practised by women such as weaving and embroidery...
, Xilonen, Atlatonan and Huixtocihuatl
Huixtocihuatl
In Aztec mythology, Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who presided over salt and salt water. Her younger brother was Tlaloc, and the rain gods, the Tlaloques are her sisters, or, in some sources, the children of Tlaloc...
, and he lived with them for twenty days. Four days before the main ceremony the tlatoani secluded himself in his palace and the Tezcatlipoca impersonator and his four wives paraded through the city. On the fifth day they travelled by canoe to a place called Acaquilpan, here he was left to himself by his wives near the temple Tlacochcalco ("In the House of Darts"). He then freely walked up the stairs of the pyramid, breaking a flute on each step. At the summit the priests would lay him on a sacrificial stone, open his chest with an obsidian
Obsidian
Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock.It is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimum crystal growth...
dagger, and remove his heart. He was beheaded and his skull was placed on the tzompantli
Tzompantli
A tzompantli or skull rack is a type of wooden rack or palisade documented in several Mesoamerican civilizations, which was used for the public display of human skulls, typically those of war captives or other sacrificial victims.-Etymology:...
(skull rack), his body was flayed and his flesh was distributed among the nobles of the city and eaten. The warcaptive who was to be the next impersonator of Tezcatlipoca also took part in the flesh and probably also wore the skin of his predecessor.
During the feast other deity impersonators were also sacrificed. Offerings of food, flowers and paper banners were made throughout the festival, and as the offerings were presented the people danced the "Leap of Toxcatl". Men would also perform the dance of "the Serpent", and the women a dance named "Grilled Corn". During these dances there would be kissing and playing between men and women. After the dances the participants were ritually scarred
Scarification
Scarifying involves scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.In the process of body scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin...
by the priests of Tezcatlipoca (the tlatlacanahualtin).
Interpretations
Eduard SelerEduard Seler
Eduard Georg Seler was a prominent German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, epigrapher, academic and Americanist scholar, who made extensive contributions in these fields towards the study of pre-Columbian era cultures in the Americas...
saw the Toxcatl ritual as symbol of the change of season represented as the death and rebirth of Tezcatlipoca. He likens Toxcatl to its K'iche' Maya equivalent, the feast of Jun Raqan
Huracan
Huracan , in Mayan understandable as Jun Raqan "one legged", is a K'iche' Mayan god of wind, storm, fire and one of the creator deities who participated in all three attempts at creating humanity...
, which is the celebration of the new year. Michel Graulich, who advocates a different calendrical correlation, places Toxcatl in the fall and sees the festival as a harvest feast celebrating the abundance of maize. Olivier (2003) stresses the importance of the actions of the tlatoani in the ritual and sees the feast as a way for the ruler to offer a worthy sacrifice to the lord of rulership, Tezcatlipoca.