Trecena 5, Opening on Acatl

Trecena 5 opens on 1 Acatl, the reed, under the patronage of Chalchiuhtlicue, she of the jade skirt, goddess of lakes and rivers and the deity who presides over the ritual bathing of every Mexica newborn regardless of the day it falls on. Sahagun's informants held that those born in the reed week had hearts like the cane itself, empty and unstable, quick with words and slow to finish what they began, an unfavourable reading the sources say plainly could be mended by upbringing, a rare case in the Florentine Codex's treatment of the tonalpohualli where nature and nurture are set explicitly against each other rather than nature alone deciding a child's fate.

The pairing of a water goddess with a hollow reed carries its own irony the sources do not comment on directly: water fills what is empty, and a family consulting the tonalpouhque about a child born under this trecena would have heard both halves of the reading, the sign's native hollowness and the patron's capacity, through the discipline of upbringing she was invoked to support, to fill it. Acatl is also one of the four year bearer signs, so this trecena's opening day could, in the separate 365 day solar count, name an entire year rather than only a single date within the 260 day tonalpohualli.