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Throwback: Four Things about the Mexika Calendar · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: This episode is sponsored by Archeo Gato Tours.
• 0:04
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• 0:09
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• 0:15
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• 0:27
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• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's A-R-K-E-O-G-A-T-O.com.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: Or just follow the link in the show notes.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_05: Now, on with the show.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: You must excuse me.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: But you've learned a lesson.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: A lesson in honesty.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Honesty to yourself and honesty to others.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: That lesson must stand you in good step on your money.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think we've all learned a good lesson.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: I've always heard that honesty is the best policy.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm catching on why that's some why that's some why that's that's the best.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: Greetings, dear listeners, and welcome to yet another episode of Tales from Ostlantis.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_07: And Rubinariano Tlakatekat.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_07: What is going on, Dr.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_07: Tlakatekak?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_07: Nothing much.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_07: Just same old same mo, nothing you don't report.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, trip down to Austin, right?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: That's it sounds cool.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: I like Austin.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: Austin is a very chill place.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_07: It's just three hours from here.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_07: I don't get to go down as often as I'd like, but it's uh it's always a treat to go down and uh then hop on down to San Marcos from there and visit the the Miacangarasa clan.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_07: And so that's that's kind of what we did.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_07: Spent time in Austin, spent time in San Marcos, and uh nice.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_07: And the whole family went?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_07: The whole family, little weekend getaway.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_07: Dope.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_07: Visited some bookstores and some record shops because I'm an avid vinyl record collector.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_07: So I have a collection of books and a collection of records.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_07: And my wife's like, again?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_07: More.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_07: More books?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_07: More records?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_07: Well, it's either that or I'm gonna have to take up a visum.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_04: Take your pig, which one?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_04: Just be glad.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_04: This is what where my money is going.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_04: I remember the first time uh we visited Austin, we visited uh Raul Ar Salinas.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: Uh he had a little bookstore, and I can't remember the name of the bookstore.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_07: La Resistencia?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um it was cool.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_04: He was a very cool guy.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_04: We went and we saw him in a play.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um and got to hang out with him.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: We went to the bookstore.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_07: It was a very cool trip.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, he's he's been gone for a long time now.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, like 20 years, maybe going on, 20 years.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_07: Something like that.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: One of the things that I bought at this bookstore, interestingly enough, was a Mexica calendar.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: And you know me, I collect everything I can about the calendar system.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: And this little calendar that I bought there, I have no idea where it is.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's I wish I I still had it.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_04: I it must be lot because we've moved so many times since then.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_04: But I remember looking at it and thinking, this this doesn't seem right.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_05: When you say Mexica calendar, what do you mean by that?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_04: Well, like the the Tonalpuali, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: And the Shupuali, not the uh calendario azteca that people uh the the Aztec sunstone, as it's known, that's in the uh national uh national anthropology museum in Mexico City.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: People usually mistake that when they hear Aztec calendar or Mexica calendar, they think of the sunstone, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: Because it has calendrical symbols in it, but you know, the the calendar that I bought was a printed edition, and it was only a few pages.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_04: So the whole thing was to have like a uh a a piece that you could hang on your wall.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_04: And if you remember, the very first calendars that I would design, they were like 11 by 17 sheets of paper.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: They were kind of based design-wise on the calendar that I picked up at the store in Austin.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_07: Because I have here in my hands, I'm holding a book called The Astec Calendar Handbook by Dr.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_07: Randall C.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_07: Menez and Richard B.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_07: Graber.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_07: You ever see this?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I have it.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, you have this?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, I also have that one.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, this is uh have you ever um flipped through this book?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's been a while.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_07: It's been a while.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_04: I do like, if I remember correctly, I do like a lot of the artwork, the diagrams where they explain how the interlocking wheels and and and how they move and cause the the numbers to change and the days to change and stuff.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: If I'm remembering correctly.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_07: Let me let me refresh your memory.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_07: On page five.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_07: The bottom paragraph.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_07: In what is now called southwest of the US, a civilization sprawled out over the Great Basin steppe areas.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_07: The nations of this area spoke a common language family called Nahuatl, pronounced Nawat O, which translates to four waters.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_07: This may reference the four waters birthplace of Nahuatl believed to be the Chaco Canyon area of the southwestern US.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_04: And this is cite somebody was reading Cecilio Roscoe at this point.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_07: Well, they cite they cite a book by an author by the last name, I can't even pronounce it, but I'm gonna spell it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_07: V-L-A-H-O-S of Lejos, Vlaos, 1970.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_07: And funny thing, when I first bought this book, because I found this at uh local resale bookstore, I went and I searched for that source.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_07: The only place that had it was uh local uh if you want to call it a university, one of these uh religious schools that passes as a university.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_07: And I went and checked out the book by Olivia Vlejo's New World Beginnings.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_07: And I followed the source and guess what?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_07: That information isn't in there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_07: Doesn't that piss you off?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_07: It does.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_07: Doesn't that bother you?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_07: Why the hell would you cite something incorrectly?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and is it made up?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's the first thing that comes to mind, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_04: Is like, did they just make up this citation?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_07: They made up a citation for this.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's happened to me.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: It happened to me while doing the research for this episode.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: Somebody cited something that Duran had said about uh Nemontemi.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so I was like, Oh yeah, I remember that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: And so it was a real citation.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: I remember reading Duran's words, but they cited the wrong book.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: And so I went through and I'm like, that is not in here.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: What the hell are they talking about?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: So then I I pulled out my other book from Duran, and that's where the the citation was from.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's like that sounds really, really sloppy to me.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and this was in a published paper.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_07: Wow.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_07: You gotta follow the sources, gotta follow the sources.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, don't don't believe it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_04: Don't believe it just just because you see it in writing or somebody you respect told you, you know.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_04: Just peel peel back those layers, go back to the book.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_07: But it's in the books, curly.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_07: It must be true.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it must be true.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_07: It's printed in this book.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_04: So it's hard for me to tell from here.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_04: Does that version of the book, is the cover like a weird laminated cardboard?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so that is the same one that I have.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, it's a cool little book.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_07: Like you said, it does have some cool images and whatnot, but like that's not the only thing that's problematic.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not gonna get into it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_07: We we should probably do a whole episode of this book.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's got some issues.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_07: So it's got major issues.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_07: It's definitely got some major issues, so we'll just leave it at that, dear listeners.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, speaking of issues, that brings us to today's episode, which is about the Mexica calendar.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_04: With the passing of the spring equinox, we once again bring another year to a close.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_04: In Shiwit Itlamilis, the year has ended.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_04: This means it is once again time for the annual online arguments over whose calendar system follows the correct correlation.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: My favorite tradition.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_04: This is the true indigenous tradition is arguing over the calendar every once a year.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_07: Uh we all get together and just My calendar is bigger than your calendar.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: My calendar could beat up your calendar.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_04: So I thought it would be helpful to lay out four things that you should remember about the ancestral Mexica calendar that might help you discern which calendars are based on solid evidence and which ones are lacking to say the least.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_04: Now, I'm not here to tell you which correlation to follow.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not your dad.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_04: But rather, I want to equip you with some basic concepts about the calendar system so that you, dear listener, might have an informed opinion to help guide your further research.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: But also, you should probably just go ahead and buy the calendar that I just published along with Ruben Ochoa.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_04: It is available on tales from Oslanthus.com and Amazon.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: And now, with that shameless plug out of the way, I present to you, dear listeners, four things to know about the Mexica calendar.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back after Quake Break.
• 10:27
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• 10:32
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• 10:36
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• 10:39
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• 10:52
  SPEAKER_04: Just visit TalesfromOclantis.com and click Go Premium, or follow the link in the show notes.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_04: And now on with the show.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_07: Part one.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_07: The Mexica calendar utilizes naked eye horizon-based astronomy.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: So to really understand how the Mexica calendar system works, we first need to talk about naked-eye horizon-based astronomy.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: So, what is naked eye horizon-based astronomy?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_04: Mesoamerican astronomers laid the foundation for the calendar system by observing the rising and setting of the sun in relation to the horizon.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: And they did this by using their naked eye.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_04: So this was without the aid of any telescopic enhancement.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: By finding a fixed point on the horizon, such as a mountain peak, and comparing the daily sunrise in relation to this fixed point, they were able to observe that the sun slowly travels across the horizon north to south in a set pattern.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: To accomplish this, the observer needs to view the sunrise from a fixed location themselves.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_04: Using this method, the year can be divided into two halves or seasons, using the spring and fall equinoxes as the center point.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_04: These two seasons are Chopan, the wet season, and Tonalco, the dry season.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: By marking a point on the horizon where you can observe sunrise during the spring equinox, the following natural phenomenon occurs.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Every day, the sunrise will slowly track across the horizon to the north, eventually coming to a stop during the summer solstice, at which point it will begin to track daily, once again to the south, where it will reach the center point at the fall equinox and then continue on to the south until it stops again at the winter solstice.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: The sunrise will then once track again to the north, where it will arrive back at the original center point during the spring equinox.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_04: So sunrise at equinox tracks across to the north, summer solstice, sun comes back, another equinox, further to the south, winter solstice, and then back.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_04: And it will take approximately 365 days for the sun to complete this journey, right?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: To go from spring equinox and back again.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_07: So what do you say to someone that might ask the question why does it begin in the spring?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_07: Why not in the fall?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: The answer to that, um, basically, is that's what all of the primary sources say.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_04: And it's also in the archaeological record that that is how the sun would be tracked.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_04: And actually, we're gonna get to that here in a second, because I'm I'm glad you asked.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_04: So, while Mesoamerican astronomers originally used natural points on the horizon, such as mountain peaks, to observe the movement of the sun, they eventually began to construct artificial horizon markers in the form of temples.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: In archaeology, we refer to these structures as E-groups, named after the group E complex found at the classic period site of Washaktun in Guatemala.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_04: So what they did was they built a set of three uh temples facing due east, and when you stand at a certain vantage point to observe the rising of the sun, the sunrise that marks, you know, comes out in the center of the center temple, that sunrise happens at the spring equinox.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: So then if you stand there, then you could see this natural phenomenon play out.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_04: So the the temple on the north side marks the solstice, and the temple on the south side marks the winter solstice, and the center temple marks the spring equinox.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: And the fall?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and the fall equinox.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_07: Now it's my understanding that Mesoamerican societies like uh the Mexica had instruments that they would use to observe um the stars in the sky.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_07: Is that not true?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_07: And would they have used them for for these purposes as well, or were they used for something else?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they would have used them for these purposes.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, I have an entire lecture that I give on this very topic, and I'm saving it for a future podcast episode.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, look at you.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_07: So stay tuned, dear listeners, if you want to know more.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_07: That's right.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_07: Point two.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_07: Days always begin at sunrise.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: To eliminate the need for a leap year, which we will get to here in a bit, some in the Lanza's Theka tradition have adopted a calendar system that annually shifts the start of each day by around six hours.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: They do this by adding an extra quarter to the last day of each solar year.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_04: Because of this, during some years the days will begin at sunrise, while others will begin at noon, and then others will begin at sunset, and others will begin at midnight.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_07: You know, when I first started on this road, that was the calendar system that that we were under that I remember.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_07: And it was always kind of confusing to me because I'm like, oh I would always forget, is this the year that the Mishikanu year is at sunrise or is it sunset?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_07: Is it at noon or midnight?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_07: And so it was always like a question like, uh, who's keeping track of this again?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I also had those same questions.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: And at the time I wasn't equipped with enough information to really answer it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: So I just kind of unfortunately relied on the expertise of others, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: To be alleged.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, except the standard explanation that that most people had adopted.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because I'm I'm figuring, well, they must know something that there must be a reason for this, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_04: There must be evidence that supports this.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_07: It's like it's like that game show, Tin Meshika People Said.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: So some versions of this calendar even go so far as to specify the exact time using modern European timekeeping conventions, no less, to pinpoint when each day should begin.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: So using this method, Tochtli years begin at 6 45 a.m., Akat years at 1245 p.m., thekbat years at 6.45 p.m., and Kali years at 12.45 a.m.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_04: Alright.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_04: Other interpretations promoted by those in the Dansa community offer slight variations of this, with some even incorporating cycles of 72 and 18 minutes.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_04: Now, if this sounds nonsensical and convoluted, it's because it is.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_04: When we measure time by using naked-eye horizon-based astronomy to chart the movement of the sun, only two solar events are of any real consequence: sunrise and sunset.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: And of these two, the sunrise, birth of each day is the simplest and most logical way of beginning the day.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, we have archaeological, ethnohistorical, and historical evidence showing that the Mexica started each day at sunrise.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_07: Well, if I may, I mean, yes, sunrise and sunset are obvious times of the day to either begin or end uh a count or an observation.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_07: But what about midday?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, midday is also kind of significant in Mexica cosmology, isn't it?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, why wouldn't you use why wouldn't midday also count for?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm speaking st strictly in terms of if you're using the horizon to measure the count of your year.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I see.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: Because if you're looking at the horizon, it's the rising, not yeah, yeah.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_04: The rising in the setting is when you would have that vantage point.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_07: Makes sense.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_07: That's a good explanation.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_07: As Diego Duran himself observed.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_07: At dawn when the sun was rising, the priest again sounded his drum, at the hour when bells ring at daybreak today.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_07: With this sound he announced the birth of the day, and thus travelers and strangers prepared for their journey according to that signal, as if they had been prohibited from leaving the city until then.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_07: Likewise the farmers, traders, and merchants made themselves ready with that sign, some going to the marketplaces, others to their fields.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_07: Women also rose to sweep their homes.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_07: Diego Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, page one thirty four.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_07: And this description of a daily ceremony from the Florentine Codex.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_07: Each day when the sun rose, quail were slain and incense was offered, and thus were quail slain.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_07: They wrung the necks of the quail, they raised them, dedicating them to the sun, and they greeted the sun, they said, The sun hath come to emerge Tonamet Chupil Tontli Gotle Quanitl but how will he go in his way?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_07: How will he spend the day?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_07: Perhaps something evil will befall his common people.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_07: They said unto him, Perform thy function, work, O our Lord, and each day was thus done when the sun arose, as had been said.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_07: Book two, page two hundred sixteen.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_04: So there we have it.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: When we're using a strictly horizon based calendar system, such as the ancestral Meshika calendar, the days will begin at sunrise, regardless of the year that it's taking place.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: We don't shift the beginning of the day every single year.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_07: Point three.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_07: Each year begins on one of four days.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: So the Mesoamerican calendar consists of 18 months, and I know they're not actually called months, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm calling them months for ease of understanding.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure I'm going to get hate mail anyway.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like, well, actually.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_04: So there's 18 months of 20 days and a 19th month of five days.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_04: Technically, it's five days and some change, really, but this discrepancy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Is accounted for when you measure the year using naked eye horizon-based astronomy.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_04: This gives us the 365 days and some change that it takes the sun to make that trip along the horizon from start to finish, spring equinox to spring equinox.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: The 20 days are combined with a repeating count from 1 to 13 to give each day a unique name.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: For example, the day 1 sipli will be followed by 2 ehekat, then 3 kali, 4 kwetsbalin, and so on.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: It will take 260 days before this combination of 20 day signs and numerical coefficients from 1 to 13 to start over at 1 sipakli.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: So 260 days before we get a repeat of the same day sign.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: This is known as the Tonal Puali or the day count.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_04: This method of naming days is then inserted into the 365-day Shiwi or solar year.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_04: So a lot of people get confused on this part because there's actually two counts going, right?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: There's the Tonal Puali and the Shu Puali, but they work together.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: So the Tonalpuali.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_07: That's why our ancestors used those two gears when they were merging the calendars to show you.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_07: Exactly.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_07: They had these giant gears.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_07: Giant gears.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_07: That's actually where the sunstone used to be, except now it's missing the gear, the teeth along the edge of the city.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_04: And the giant crank.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_04: And the crank would stand off to the side.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_04: But I mean, you know, all jokes aside, that's a good way of visualizing it, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_04: Is to see these wills working together.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_04: So additionally, there are four types of years or year bearers which continuously rotate one after the other.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_04: So like uh in the Chinese calendar, right, there's the year of the rabbit, the year of the dragon, and so on.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_04: But in the Mesoamerican count, there are only four.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_04: There's four different types of years.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_04: They are akat or reed, thekbat, or flint, kali, or house, and tochtli, or rabbit.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_04: Like the day signs, the year bearers also have associated numerical coefficients from one to thirteen.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_04: So that's how we get the names of the years.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_04: One akat will be followed by two tekbat, then three kali, four tochtli, five akat, six tekbat, seven kali, eight tochtli, nine akat, and so on.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: The combination of numbers and year bearers will keep repeating, and it will take 52 years before we end up back at the beginning with the year, another year called 1 akat.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: This 52-year cycle is known as the shumolpili or bundling of years.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, knowing all of this, when we start at the first day of the count, one sipakli, se sipakli, one caeman, in the year se akat, or one read, if we use that as the beginning, which is what's documented in all extant codices, and we just count forward without ever stopping, a really cool natural pattern emerges.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_04: The five days of Nemuntemi cause the first day of each year to shift.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_04: So this creates a pattern in which if it's an akat year, it will always begin on the day Sipakli.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_04: Tekbat years will start with the day mikistli, kali years on Osomatli, and Tochli years on Koskakwautli.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_04: And furthermore, the number of each year will always match that of the first day of the year.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_04: So it's it's really cool, and it's just the way it works.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_04: It's just the way it works out.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: So if the year is one akat, it will start on the day one sipakli.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_04: And then it'll the following year will be two tekbat, and that'll start on two mikisli.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_04: Then three kali will start on three osomatli.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: Four tochtli will start on four koskakwautli, five akat on five sipakli, and so on.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's just a really cool uh pattern that comes out.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_04: It just and this is just what naturally happens.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_04: You start at the beginning, you count forward without stopping, and all these cool patterns start to emerge.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: Uh renowned Mesoamerican archaeologist Celia Nutal took note of this pattern in her groundbreaking book, Note on the Ancient Calendar System, which she published in 1894.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back after a quick break.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_04: Have you picked up your Mexica calendar for the year 12 Flint?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_04: Or how about a paperback copy of the four disagreements?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_04: Just visit talesfromostlantis.com for all the latest merchandise and show some love for your favorite podcast.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's TalesfromOstlantis.com for all the latest merchandise.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_04: Now, back to the show.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_07: The mass of authentic evidence established the employment of a solar calendar in which the years Akat, Tekpat, Kali, and Tochtli began respectively on days Sipakli, Mikistli, Osamatli, and Coscaquautli.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_07: This order is recorded by Sagun, Duran, Gama, Humboldt, Ramirez, Orozco Iberra, and Chavero, who remarks that it is observed in the Vatican, Borgian, and Teleriano Ramensis codices, and is adopted by their interpreters, Fabriga, Rios, and others.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_07: Note on the ancient calendar system, Salianutal, page six.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: So basically, if a Mexica calendar correlation starts each and every year with the same day sign, you might be in for a bad time.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_04: You like that?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_04: I couldn't resist.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_04: When I was writing it, I was like, this is such a dumb joke.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_07: Kind of like my bad dad jokes that I make in class, and all the students stare at me like, what there is a leap year.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_07: How dare you, sir.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_07: A leapier.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_07: You have adopted the ways of the colonizer.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_05: Uh oh.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_05: So here's a basic fact.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: When observing the daily sunrise using a set point on the horizon to track the sun's movement, something will become immediately obvious.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_04: That is, each year, the sunrise will shift slightly to the right of the point on the horizon that you're using to mark the beginning of the solar year.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: This is because the solar year is not exactly 365 days long.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: Due to the tilt and wobble of the Earth, it will take four years for sunrise to return to its original starting point on the horizon.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: This natural phenomenon of the solar year shifting by roughly a quarter of a day each year causes an entire extra day to occur every four years before the sun returns to its original starting point.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_04: During the 16th century, Diego Durán observed the significant role played by the native calendar in indigenous communities, enabling them to determine the appropriate timing for agricultural tasks such as sowing, harvesting, tilling, and cultivating the cornfields.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_04: He also noted that Mexica farmers strictly followed the calendrically based instructions of their elders to plant and harvest their fields, and they would not start their farming activities without their approval.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, think about it.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_04: Leaving out a leap year would cause the calendar to shift by 20 days over 80 years.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_04: So 20 days, that's one of the months in the calendar system.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_04: You would lose, you know, it would shift off of those, and it would only take 80 years for that shift to happen.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_04: All agricultural cycles and their associated ceremonies would fall completely out of alignment with the seasons that they are tied to.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: So by now it should be obvious if you track the movement of the sun across the horizon, the leap year just naturally occurs every four years.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_04: It's just something that the sun does.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_04: But what do the historical documents say?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_04: While the cronistas themselves were careful to note that the Mexica calendar did in fact utilize a leap year.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_07: For example, there is conjecture that when they pierced the boys and girls' ear, which was every four years, they set aside six days of Nemontemi, and it is the same as the bisextile, which we observe every four years.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_07: Book 2, chapter 19, page 35.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_05: And that was the from the Florentine Codex.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_07: And also from the Florentine Codex, we have As to what he saith that they lacked the leap year, it is wrong, because in the count which may be called a true calendar, they count 365 days, and once every four years they counted three hundred and sixty-six days with a feast, which for this reason they observed every four years.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_07: Florentine Codex Book 4, Appendix, page 141.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_07: Diego Duran also noted the use of the leap year.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_07: These people observed the leap year much as we do.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_07: Diego Duran.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_07: Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, page 469.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_04: So as the Mexica used a calendar system that they inherited from prior ethnic groups, and thus it was common throughout Mesoamerica, we can infer that the use of a leap year was a long-standing feature of Mesoamerican timekeeping.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, everything would have been thrown off entirely.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_04: Here we see the Spanish priest and burner of Maya sacred objects, Diego Velanda.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_04: Guy's an asshole.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_04: But he wrote a book where he comments on the Maya use of the leap year.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_07: The other kind of month consisted of twenty days and was called Winal Huneque.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_07: The complete year consisted of 18 months plus five days and six hours.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_07: With these six hours, they made an additional day every four years, so that they had a three hundred and sixty-six day every fourth year.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: Now, some folks like to argue online, surprised, I know, that incorporating a leap year is colonial and a European concept.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_04: Take, for example, a recent Facebook comment from a disgruntled Don Sante.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_07: Talk about European-based time.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_07: You follow the Ruben of Chor time count that does the leap year shit like the invaders.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_07: That is the ultimate example of cultural contamination.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well, to this I say bullshit.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: An extra day is literally something that naturally occurs and which can be observed if you, oh, I don't know, take the time to go outside and watch the rising of the sun every day as it tracks across the horizon.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_04: If you do this for four years in a row, which I have, you will see it for yourself.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_04: The idea that our ancestors were incapable of recognizing this natural occurrence, right?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: They were just too stupid, or that they simply chose to ignore it, despite developing a calendar anchored to seasonal events, is naive at best and borderline racist at worst.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_04: It just really pisses me off, this thought that our ancestors developed this entire complex calendrical system that ties, you know, the patterns of the seasons into the ceremonies and when you planted and when you harvested, when you danced, and then just chose to throw all of that shit out the window because they weren't going to count the sun correctly.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_07: I think what's going on here, people who have followed a certain particular correlation, and now you know you have a chos correlation will have noticed the big difference.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_07: And so because they're so invested in that specific correlation that they've used for, I don't know, at least a couple of decades, maybe even more than that, three, four decades.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_07: It's hard to give it up because that's all you know.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_04: And right, like and and to clarify, I said borderline racist, not in response to this Dan Sante, but because I've seen uh Eurocentric pseudo-historians try to dunk on Mesoamerican timekeeping by specifically saying that they were too dumb to know that there should have been a leap here.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_04: Uh others in the Danza Azteca community uh will they'll just rationalize why they refuse to accept a calendar correlation that contradicts the one endorsed by their particular kalpuli.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_04: On more than one occasion, I have been told, it's okay to have all of these different correlations, just pick the one that works for you energetically, man.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_04: It isn't the indigenous way to argue over which correlation is correct, dude.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: But is this true?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_04: Did our ancestors really not care if we followed a calendar that does not align with the seasons?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let's take a look for ourselves.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_04: The following passage is from the Wewetlachtoli, the ancient words of our ancestors, as recorded in the Florentine Codex by Nawa nobility.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_04: This particular passage speaks about the importance of the calendar keepers, or individuals known as Tonalpoke.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_07: The Tonalpoke is a wise man, an owner of books and writings.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_07: The good Tonalpoke is one who reads the day signs for one, who examines, who remembers their meanings, he reads the day signs, he brings them to one's attention.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_07: The bad Tonal Poke is a deceiver, a mocker, a false speaker, a hypocrite, a diabolical, a scandalous speaker.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_07: He disturbs, confounds, beguiles, and deceives others.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_07: Sounds like they kind of did care.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_07: So which one are you, Curly?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_07: Which which one are you?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_07: Are you the good Donald Poké or the I don't know?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm sure people who listen to this podcast, uh, some of them are gonna be like, well, Curly's the bad Donald Pokemon.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_05: Your Saddleman.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_04: So let me close with this.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_04: You don't have to believe me, but you should probably believe the sun.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: But so yeah, it's well, here's something that's really interesting.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_04: The online fighting um hasn't been as bad this year, uh with all the the arguments over the correlations.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I would like to think that this has something to do with a large number, well, maybe not a large number, a number of kalpulis, dansa grupos, are adopting, if not adopting the calendar that Ruben Ochoa and uh that well that we've published, if they're not directly adopting it, then they're at least questioning which calendar correlation they should be using.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm seeing more open-mindedness, surprisingly, and and hey, it fuck, it's awesome, right?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_04: To see uh less people just jumping down each other's throats and and fighting tooth and nail.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_04: But like, you know, I I have the the quote here in this episode from that one Don Santa who's really pissed off that there's a different correlation.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but arguments like this are becoming fewer and more far between.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_07: Could it be though?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, if people are like me in certain ways, like I'm tired of social media.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know about you.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_07: It could be that too.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_07: I'm just like I'm not hardly on it anymore.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_07: I'm no I'm no longer on the app formerly known as Twitter.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not active there on Facebook.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_07: I just kind of you know pop in every now and then when I get a message or when I'm posting something on the Toast from Astantes page.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_07: But I mean, really I'm not on there that much.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_07: So I think I think people are finally getting tired of all these online arguments.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_04: It could be, but there's some people who just love to argue though, right?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_04: And they're usually the most vocal, the ones who jump on the the the the type that write letters to the editor of newspapers, you know.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_07: The Slactivists, yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they'll always be there, uh, I think.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_04: But I think you're right, you know, I don't get online as much uh apart from promoting the podcast and promoting uh the work that we're doing, I don't really, you know, and I used to back in the day, man, I would jump on and just fucking argue with people until the cows came home, but it wasn't accomplishing anything, right?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and you just get tired of it.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_04: But I am glad to know because a lot of uh grupos have reached out to me ordering calendars and telling me that their their grupo has adopted without telling us the numbers calendar.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_07: Can you give us uh a ballpark figure in terms of the percentages and from when you started the calendar to today, has there been a significant increase?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_07: I'm sure there's been years where it's been kind of leveled out, but uh overall in the aggregate, do you think it's it's more now than when you started out?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_04: Or this year it's definitely been significant.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_04: Last year it was just kind of leveled, right?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_04: A kind of flatline.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_04: But this year uh went through the roof?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, honestly.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh March, because March is when they all tend to sell, right?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_04: Like February, March is is when most of the orders start coming in, and there's been a lot more interest this year than there ever has.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: So it's it's so it's growing.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it also might be the result of like this post-COVID grupos are getting together more, and maybe I don't know, somebody in the grupo might have been like, hey, check this out, you know, and just more open-mindedness of accepting new things.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_04: But there's definitely been a lot more interest here.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I had someone from our group here in in Dallas accompanied reach out to me uh about the calendar and uh first of all, they wanted to know when they were gonna be available for purchase, and they also kind of wanted to know if they could use it somehow for the Mexican Year ceremony as a way to like as a gift to Don Santes.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_07: Um but I think what they wanted to do was they were thinking more along the lines of the more traditional calendars, like the ones that you would get at the paneleria that had the the mural uh image and then it it at the bottom, the top, and then the the paper that you would pull them off every month or every two months.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_07: But at least they were asking about the the calendar, so they were interested.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_07: And I've been sharing it with the Calli for uh a couple of years, uh at least, and I think people are coming around, they're beginning to see that there is something to the Ochoa and Curly count.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_07: So or correlation, not call it a count the Ochoa correlation.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_07: Before people call it upset at me, it's not it's correlation.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: Some some people even call it the Ochoa Nutal correlation.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, really?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_04: Because because Celia Nutal had written a lot about it prior.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_04: But I, you know, personally I call it the ancestral Mexica correlation because it's the one that I feel is the most accurate, the most authentic.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's the way to go, man.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, it's some of the resistance that I've noticed.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, one, people don't like questioning their teachers, right?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_04: They don't like they don't want to question the jefe of their grupo, they don't want to, at least not publicly, have these debates in their grupo and cause tension and whatever.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_04: But then you've also got the people who've, you know, they've tattooed using the other calendar calendar.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Correlations, they'll get their birthdays tattooed on their bodies, or they'll name their kids based on the day they were born on these other correlations.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_04: And so they don't want to give it up because, well, I named my kid off of that.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, well, yeah, but you could still admit that it it wasn't the right correlation.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't change your kid's name.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's not like magic, it's not a spell that you cast.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_04: It's all wrong.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_07: The signs were all wrong.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_04: So I think they're they're too invested in um this idea that somehow if they admit that they've been using uh an inaccurate correlation, that it disqualifies everything that they've been doing, you know, instead of just saying, oh wow, we got that wrong.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_04: Let's use this one.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_04: We came up in this together, man.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_04: You knew you knew me.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_04: I I was all about researching the calendar and I didn't have all the answers, so I was using a correlation that I later realized was inaccurate.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's not that big of a deal.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_04: I would rather I and I don't know if it's because of my training in science or just being open-minded and having, you know, when the evidence is presented to me to be able to say, like, oh, okay, well, I obviously had I didn't have enough evidence, or I had incorrect information, the data was wrong, here's better data.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_04: So this is what I'm going to to start doing.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_07: Well, see that that's your problem, Carly, is that you use data and evidence.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_07: That's a big no-no.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_07: You're supposed to use your feelings and how it feels to you.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_04: Which calendar works energetically?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_07: The energy and all that good stuff.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_07: So you know how how it we're in the Chinese on the Chinese calendar, we're uh this is the year of the dragon, right?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_07: If I'm not mistaken?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_07: And it's funny because I was born on in the year of the dragon back back some some time some time ago.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_07: So what's the equivalent for us in in the Mexica year?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_04: So which year are we currently in?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Dr.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: Ariano, we are currently in the year 11 revenu or Matlakli One Se Akatl.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_04: But on March 20th, the day of the observed equinox, that's the day that is represents when you observe the equinox as measured by the Templo Mayor in in Tenochtitlan, that day represents the bundling or the tying off of the year, right?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_04: The end of the year is when you observe the equinox.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_04: And so then on the day after the equinox, we start the year Matlakliwan Ome Thekbat or 12 Flint.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_07: So on the solstice, that's that's the the beginning or the end?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_07: The equinox.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_07: I mean the equinox.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the equinox marks the end.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_07: The end.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_07: And so the actual first day of the new year is the following day after the Yeah, sunrise the following day, we begin the next year.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_04: That makes sense.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_04: And that's another concept that you know, and some people it might just be semantics, but like when I started off the episode, I I made sure to say in Shiwit Itlamilis, right?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_04: The year has ended.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_04: Because Mesoamerican timekeeping these bundles of years, these units of time, they were marked by their endings.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_04: So you had a 52-year cycle, right?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_04: The sh the shimopili, the bundling of years.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: And then you have groups of 13 years that are called the tlalpili, which are the bundling of the year bearers.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_04: So we're counting, we're marking the endings rather than the beginnings.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just a slight shift in in language, but you know, we'll still say happy Mexica New Year, because you know, that's the way people talk.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, strictly speaking, it's it's the ends, it's the the tying off of you and so it should actually be happy Mexica End Year.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where you get the whole um, you know, the the 2020, the the the 2012 crazy shit, right, with the Maya calendar.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's because they the Maya calendar had come to the end of one of these cycles, and then it was about to start a new cycle, but people interpreted that as the end of the world as we know it.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the end of this cycle represents the end of time or or whatever.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_07: Okay, but here's a curveball.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_07: What about people who celebrate the Mexico New Year uh in February?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_07: Because it's already passed.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_07: At the time of the recording of this episode, uh, those people who celebrate the Mexico New Year already celebrated it back in February, and they're saying, What are you talking about?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_07: It's you're late.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's yeah, you're late.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it's is it Alfonso Caso?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: I believe so.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: And then even then, there's some some disagreement because some people will do it February 2nd, and then some will do it February 23rd, I've I've heard the 12th, but I don't know.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_04: The 12th, really?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_04: And um as far as I know, the the February 2nd thing is tied to candle mass.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's tied to uh uh strictly Christian tradition.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_07: Okay, now hear me out.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_07: What if what if uh in before the the invasion on the day that corresponds to February the second in our calendar?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_07: Was there some kind of significant event that was then sort of uh masked under the the European calendar and religion?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_07: I mean there's no passed off as candle mass?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_07: Was there something that you can think of for that day?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_04: Not not offhand, um like any astronomical event, right, that would occur on those days.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_07: And and it's been it's my understanding that the people who who celebrate the Mexica New Year uh in February, especially the 12th, they're marking the beginning of the agricultural year.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_04: But what uh do you know what like what are they using though to mark that?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_04: No like what celestial event or what um That's a good question.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_04: So I have no idea.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's well, I'll look into it.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_04: I will I will endeavor to find the answer to that question.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's what we do here.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_04: What do we do here again?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: We we we look for the truth, my friend.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: What is the truth?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the truth it's it's like medicine.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_04: Doesn't always taste good, but it is always good for you.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_07: Happy Mexica New Year, everyone.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hundreds of people and dancers and Latin American tribes gathered to give offerings during the Mexican New Year.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is a part of the Aztec New Year celebrations going on in San Jose.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Organizers telling KIUN that the event is a celebration of Native American cultures and the Aztec calendar.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thousands of dancers gathering here for this year's ceremony, families carrying on those traditions pasting from one generation to the next.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we're kind of matching in a way, so you can like kind of tell us that they're together.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: One year on the Aztec calendar is about 18 months.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: Families from the Central Coast also participating in the events held again in San Jose over the weekend.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: Stay with us.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for listening to Tales from Oslantis, a project of the Chimali Institute of Mesoamerican Arts.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_04: If you enjoy the show, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_04: You can do this by visiting talesfromaclantis.com and clicking support the podcast.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_04: Your continued support will help keep the podcast ad free and independent.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_04: Until next time, Demoy Taz.