Tōxcatl
Aztec month and festival honoring Tezcatlipoca with human sacrifice.
The festival was dedicated to the god Tezcatlipoca and culminated in the sacrifice of a young man who had impersonated the deity for a full year.
Quick Facts
- Calendar position
- Fifth veintena (twenty-day month)
- Approximate gregorian dates
- May 5–22
- Dedicated deity
- Tezcatlipoca
- Key ritual
- Sacrifice of a year-long Tezcatlipoca impersonator
- Notable event
- Toxcatl Massacre
- Calendar system
- Aztec xiuhpohualli (365-day year count)
- Month position
- Fifth of 18 veintenas
- Key event
- Toxcatl Massacre (1521)
Facts from the source article.
Calendrics
The Aztec calendar comprised two cycles: a 260-day tonalpohualli and a 365-day xiuhpohualli. The xiuhpohualli consisted of eighteen twenty-day veintenas plus five extra days at year's end. Some accounts state the calendar included a leap day to keep aligned with agrarian cycles, while others claim the leap year was unknown and the months drifted relative to the astronomical year. Spanish conquistadors who witnessed Toxcatl in 1521 reported that the feast fell in May.
The name
Fray Diego Durán derived Toxcatl from the Nahuatl verb toxcahuia, meaning 'wither from thirst,' giving the sense 'drought.' Other proposed meanings relate to necklaces of grilled maize worn during festivities. The Aztecs also called the month Tepopochtli ('smoking' or 'fumigation'). Corresponding months in other Mesoamerican cultures often reference smoke, steam, or clouds: the Otomi term Atzibiphi includes biphi ('smoke'), and the Kaqchikel name Cibixic means 'cloudy smoke.' The Matlatzinca word Unditini translates as 'we are going to grill maize.'
The Festival
The Toxcatl festival centered on a year-long ritual cycle. A war captive was chosen to become the living embodiment of the god Tezcatlipoca. He was trained in refined speech, singing, and flute playing. For an entire year, he was treated with immense respect as he walked through Tenochtitlan. His body was painted black, with a single unpainted stripe across his eyes. He wore fine cotton clothes, precious jewelry, a snail-shell lip ornament, an eagle-feather headdress, turquoise bracelets, and golden bells on his ankles. He strolled through the city playing his flute, smoking tobacco, and smelling flowers, and people greeted him as the god himself. At the Quauhxicalco building, he would sometimes burn copal incense and play his flute. He met with the tlatoani, the Aztec ruler, several times during the year, and the ruler would ritually adorn him. In the month before Toxcatl, Huey Tozoztli, he was married to four women who represented the goddesses Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Atlatonan, and Huixtocihuatl, and he lived with them for twenty days. Four days before the main ceremony, the tlatoani secluded himself in his palace, while the impersonator and his four wives paraded through the city. On the fifth day, they went by canoe to a place called Acaquilpan. There, his wives left him near the temple Tlacochcalco. He then climbed the pyramid steps on his own, breaking a flute on each step. At the top, the priests stretched him over a sacrificial stone, cut open his chest with an obsidian blade, and removed his heart. His head was cut off and placed on the tzompantli, the skull rack. His body was skinned, and the flesh was given to the city’s nobles to eat. The war captive who would become the next impersonator also ate some of the flesh and likely wore the skin of his predecessor.
Interpretations
Eduard Seler interpreted the Toxcatl ritual as symbolizing the change of season through the death and rebirth of Tezcatlipoca, comparing it to the K'iche' Maya feast of Jun Raqan, a new year celebration. Michel Graulich, using a different calendrical correlation that places Toxcatl in the fall, viewed the festival as a harvest feast celebrating maize abundance. Olivier (2003) emphasized the tlatoani's role in the ritual, seeing the feast as a means for the ruler to offer a worthy sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, the lord of rulership.
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