YEARBEARERS AND THE CALENDAR ROUND

Years were identified by the day name of the last day of the year. This is referred to as the year bearer. Since the year (xihuitl) was a constant 365 days in length, without corrections for leap years, and since there were 20 day names (see tonalpohualli), the last day of every year was five days later than the previous year (20x18+5). Thus, after four years the yearbearer would again be the same as the first year. Among the Central Mexican and Mixtec peoples, the year bearers were calli (house), tochtli (rabbit), acatl (reed), and tecpatl (flint).

House	Rabbit	Reed	Flint

The coefficients (I-XIII) of yearbearers were also often provided. Since each of the four days could occur with 13 different coefficients, the same coefficient+yearbearer would reoccur after 52 years. This period of fifty-two 365-day-years is referred to as the Calendar Round or Xiuhmolpilli. Unlike the Maya, no attempt was made to remove the ambiguity between dates greater than a calendar round apart, although the day within the year was often provided.

This is the year 11 House, day 12 Monkey. The "A-O" sign indicates which is the year bearer.

Here the year is 12 Rabbit, day 6 Serpent

The calendar round always occurred during the year 2 acatl (Reed) among the Aztecs and was marked by a fire-drilling ceremony. This event is depicted in the Codex Borbonicus and is vividly described in Book 6 of Sahagun's Florentine Codex.

Davidson

Anthropology

Main Page