Abstract

DIAZ ALVAREZ, Ana. Tlapohualli: counting things. Reflections on the Reconstruction of Aztec Calendars. Estud. cult. náhuatl [online]. 2013, vol.46, pp.159-197. ISSN 0071-1675.

The tonalpohualli is a complex nahua cosmological technology for the count of time. It has been defined as a divinatory system operating complementarily with a true, 18-month calendar. The proposal of this article is to incorporate other categories and actions, as sacrifice, feast and flux, in order to have a better understanding of nahua calendrical epistemologies (in opposition to the studies that search for the perfect calendrical correlation between nahua and gregorian dates, as if they were conceptually equivalent). After having re-read some primary sources, I analyze the way in which different chronological discourses are mixed in the colonial descriptions of indigenous calendars, generating novel systems of counting and keeping time.

Keywords : nahua calendars; time conceptions; tlapohualli; Tonalpohualli; feasting; sacrifice.

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