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Trecena 20, Opening on Tochtli

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Trecena 20, Opening on Tochtli

Trecena 20, the last of the twenty, opens on 1 Tochtli, the rabbit, under the patronage of Xiuhtecuhtli, the turquoise fire lord, with Itztapaltotec, a lesser attested figure in the codices, standing beside him, a return to the fire god who also patronises Trecena 9 earlier in the count, fittingly closing the tonalpohualli's cycle of trecena patrons with the same deity who helps anchor its opening.

The rabbit week closes the count in plenty: its children read as industrious and provident, farmers and gatherers of abundance, but the rabbit's own shadow falls across the reading, for Ome Tochtli, 2 Rabbit, was remembered as the day of the pulque gods, the Centzon Totochtin whose feasts and drunkenness the wider tradition associated with this sign specifically, so a favourable week for the diligent read as dangerous for the thirsty, a caution embedded directly in the trecena's own second numbered day. Tochtli is one of the four year bearer signs, so this closing trecena's opening day could, in the separate 365 day solar count, name an entire year, giving the tonalpohualli's final week a significance that reached beyond the divinatory count into the civic calendar the Mexica lived their public year by.

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