Book of Days: An Introduction to the Aztec Calendar with Jesse Hathaway Diaz, RESCHEDULED
Tue, Aug 08
|Online Event
Available as an individual ticket, part of the Thursday Day Pass or General Admission Ticket.
Time & Location
Aug 08, 2023, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Online Event
About the event
The tonalpohualli, or count-of-days, is the sacred calendar of the Mexica, also known as the Aztecs. While a 365 day agricultural secular calendar, the xiuhpohualli, was used to determine important seasonal agricultural festivals and rituals, its was the day-count of the the tonalpohualli that described the flow of energies that permeated all existence. This ritual calendar both described and created an equilibrium of forces that kept the world in motion. Intimate knowledge of the Count-of-Days permeated all facets of Mexica life, but was itself an inheritance of a larger MesoAmerican calendric tradition, developed over millennia by the Zapotec and Olmec, truly blossoming with the Mayan Tzolk’in (Mayan Count-of-Days), and ultimately used by the Mexica and their contemporaries like the Mixtec.
This 260 day calendar is an interaction of 20 day signs (such as Crocodile, House, Water, Flower, etc.) and 13 numbers. It is the interaction of these two components describes the very nature of the animistic centers, or souls, that make up every living thing. It describes the tendencies and ambitions of a person, as well as the gods to whom we are most intimately connected. Its contemporary use by indigenous communities parallels systems of contemporary predictive, psychological, and medical astrology, celebrating the unique matrix of energies that make up each person.
Hathaway-Diaz, a lifelong student of curanderismo, will discuss the history and use of the Sacred Calendar, including the cosmological contexts of the MesoAmerican universe. Exploring the day signs and cycles of forces inherent in the calendar and how they might inform each person specific to their day of birth, as well as lore surrounding the sacred substances and deities assigned to each soul-part of a person born on their specific day, we can then provide a framework for attuning oneself to these cosmologies, whether you are a devotee of indigenous Meso-American deities, a muertero working with Santisima Muerte, cultivating a practice of curanderismo or brujeria, or interested in understanding indigenous systems of thought.