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Chapter 10

Dawn in the Desert: The Rise of the Toltecs

THE CHICHIMEC WORLD

Mexico's geographic location within the trade wind belt
means that most of the country's moisture is derived from the Gulf of
Mexico to the east. Were it not for the fact that the folded ridges of
the Sierra Madre Oriental rise to heights of over 3000 m (10,000 ft)
within little more than 100 km (60 mi) of the coast, the greater part
of the country might be expected to have been lush and green. However,
because of that "accident" of topography, most of Mexico lies in a
"rain-shadow" behind the mountains, with the result that water is in
critically short supply through much of the year.

Nowhere is that deficiency more in evidence than in the
northern interior of the country, because as the latitude of 30º is
neared, the winds become more southerly, paralleling the Mexican coast
and bringing their moisture ashore in Texas and the Gulf coastal areas
of the United States instead. Along Mexico's east coast, the last
great river flowing out of the interior is the Río Pánuco, which
reaches the sea where the bustling oil and industrial port of Tampico
now stands. For all intents and purposes, the Pánuco marked the
northernmost boundary of the Mesoamerican cultural realm because
beyond it, maize -- the indigenous staff of life -- could no longer be
grown with dependable regularity.

Once the verdant crests of the Sierra Madre Oriental with
their stands of oak and pine forest are passed, the landscape quickly
changes into one of creosote bush, yucca, and cacti. With all but the
highest mountain uplifts now cut off from the trade winds, the vast
interior of northern Mexico is a region almost totally dependent for
its water supply on the scattered and sporadic monsoonal downpours of
summer. As temperatures over the high plateaus of northern Mexico and
the southwestern United States build up with the northerly advance of
the sun, an upper-level flow of moist air starts moving in off the
Pacific, triggering thundershowers that are as spotty in their
distribution as they are short and violent in nature. These monsoonal
rains begin earlier and last longer in the south of the Mexican
plateau than they do in the north, and how far they penetrate or how
much precipitation they produce can vary markedly from one year to
another. As in Monsoon Asia, a very careful timing of the agricultural
cycle might produce a successful crop, but in just as many if not more
instances a total disaster could result as well. Small wonder then,
that the local inhabitants found little opportunity and even less
incentive to attempt to gain their livelihood in other than the most
rudimentary manner, that is, through collecting (gathering and
hunting).

To be sure, during the Pleistocene ice age things were
rather different. That was the time of the "pluvials," or heavy rains,
which were occasioned by the equatorward displacement of the
mid-latitude storm tracks. At that time large parts of the Mexican
plateau supported a dense grass cover which enabled a rich fauna of
Prehistoric grazing animals to inhabit the region. But as the climate
warmed and the continental ice sheets retreated, so did the storm
belts shift northward, nudging the Mexican plateau toward the semiarid
and arid climate which it experiences today. While some of the great
herds of deer, elk, and bison survived by moving northward, many
species -- such as the native camels and horses, as well as the great
lumbering mammoths and mastodons -- became extinct as the temperatures
rose, the rains ceased, and the grasslands degenerated into desert and
scrub. What had been a Paleolithic hunter's paradise had turned into a
harsh and niggardly expanse inhabited chiefly by small rodents and
reptiles, and the occasional larger predator. Indeed, one of the most
productive local environments continued to be the waters of the
temporary playa lakes which occupied the floors of many of the
mountain basins, for there both fish and waterfowl could be found, at
least seasonally.

Figure 54.

The climatic station of Zacatecas is representative of a large part of
the northern Mexican plateau and as such typifies the environment in
which the nomadic Chichimecs were found. Although the warmest month is
May, the water need (and hence the temperature) is moderate throughout
die year, due both to the place's northerly latitude and to its high
elevation. Frosts can occur in the low-sun (winter) months, but the
greatest drawback to agriculture is the deficiency of moisture. A
monsoonal distribution of precipitation is still apparent, but barely
meets the moisture requirements of plants for more than a couple of
months. As a result, the prevailing vegetation of the region
surrounding Zacatecas is of a short-grass steppe or semidesert
variety.

The higher crests of the Sierra Madre Occidental on the
western edges of the Mexican plateau formed something of a green oasis
in the drab brownness of the northern desert. Here a slightly greater
annual rainfall coupled with cooler temperatures made the moisture
effective enough to support extensive forests of pine, but once the
descent of the western slopes was made, so too was there a return to
semiarid conditions, only now in company with tropical temperatures.
The aridity of the Pacific versant of the Sierra Madre Occidental is
relieved only here and there by the waters of some larger river
snaking its way to the coast. Northward beyond the great delta of the
Río Grande de Santiago in what today is Nayarit state, the patches of
green become smaller and more scattered the farther up the coast one
goes. It was in these little alluvial plains along such rivers as the
Sinaloa and the Fuerte that the last outposts of the Mesoamerican
culture realm were to be found, clinging to their existence as tiny
islands of corn cultivation in a vast surrounding sea of nomadism.

Although the boundaries between the settled
agriculturalist and the nomadic hunter-gatherer were fairly rigidly
drawn by nature itself, this did not prevent the two culture-worlds
from interacting with one another. Perhaps much of this interaction
was the peaceful interchange of goods and ideas, because we do know
that trade items from Mesoamerica reached well up into the American
Southwest and that some especially prized commodities, such as native
copper, found their way from as far away as the shores of Lake
Superior to Central Mexico. In the same way, certain cultural traits
like the ritual ball game and sacrifices to the morning star spread
well beyond the limits of Mesoamerica into adjacent regions of North
America. But inevitably some of this cross-cultural interaction was
also of a more violent nature, and raids by hungry nomads into
frontier areas of agricultural production must have been both frequent
and repeated. Thus, depending on a given nomadic tribe's geography,
they might have been drawn into the expanding web of civilization
either early or late, either to a great degree or perhaps not at all.
In any case, for at least a half dozen centuries following the
founding of Teotihuacán, the line of contact between city dweller and
barbarian must have fluctuated uneasily through the barren desertlands
of the Mexican plateau just a few score kilometers beyond the horizon
from the Pyramid of the Sun.

THE LEGACY OF CONQUEST

Following their successful onslaught on Teotihuacán, the
Toltecs must have experienced a certain numbing realization of what
they had done. In place of the large, thriving metropolis that had
tempted their incursion in the first instance now lay the glowing
embers of a dead and vacant city -- the humble homes of its people in
ruins, its vast, sprawling marketplaces silent, its artisan quarters
abandoned, its religious and ruling elite gone. Once its stores of
foodstuffs had been ransacked and its objects of art had been
pilfered, there was nothing left but the hulking masses of its great
pyramids standing as mute witnesses to the death of a great
civilization. How long it took for Teotihuacán's terrified and
impoverished populace to shrink back into the countryside is difficult
to imagine; certainly, the exodus must have been a rapid one because
with the supplies of food and water cut off, the city's inhabitants
would have had to flee quickly to other, more congenial areas of
subsistence or perish in the attempt. The pandemonium, panic, and
sheer human suffering which engulfed the survivors must have been
catastrophic. The loss in life was no doubt staggering; the loss in
cultural and intellectual terms was almost irreparable.

Ironically, it was probably the latter which troubled the
Toltecs the most. The total fabric of the city's life was gone. Its
social structure was in tatters. Its religious being was in question.
Existence had suddenly become meaningless. It was as though the gods
had forsaken them, for without the priestly elite, there was no
interpretation of their will, no ordered timetable by which to
commemorate them. Time itself had lost its meaning, for without the
calendar one day was the same as any other.

Surely, the mysterious malaise which settled over the
survivors of Teotihuacán could not have long gone unnoticed by the
Toltec conquerors. What was this "calendar" of which everyone seemed
to speak? How had it ordered the lives of the people, and why was
there such an empty void without it? Was there something unseen --
invisible in the city itself but nevertheless real and powerful --
through which the priests had communicated with the gods? No nomads,
lurking on the desert fringes of the great metropolis, would have
suspected that in addition to the pyramids and palaces and
marketplaces and workshops -- which they could see -- was a mystical
force that drove the entire engine of civilization, but which they
could not see. It was something of which they would only belatedly
become aware once the engine had stopped.

In their quest to find out what this "calendar" was all
about, the Toltecs probably had to rely primarily on untutored,
secondary sources, for the priests who were the custodians of such
privileged information had long since fled. Indeed, the native sources
tell us that at the first sign of threat and turmoil, the priests of
Teotihuacán had assembled their books and religious paraphernalia and
abandoned the city for a land in the east. Nevertheless, the Toltecs
must have come into possession of enough of the priestly records to
recreate the calendrical system almost exactly, though at the same
time they clearly availed themselves of the opportunity to make some
distinctive modifications and embellishments of their own.

A CALENDAR REBORN: THE NAHUA MODEL

The basic structure of the Toltec calendrical system was
unmistakably patterned on that of its Teotihuacano predecessor, for 13
numerals alternated with 20 day-names to form the basis of a "sacred
almanac" whose primary function was to divine the fortunes of
individuals and schedule major religious festivities. Another count
containing 18 groups of 20 days followed by 5 additional days which
were considered "unlucky" measured the length of a "year" -- the
latter being a concept with which the Toltecs must have had only a
most rudimentary acquaintance. The two counts ran simultaneously and
only after 52 years had passed would the numbers and names of the days
once again be the same as when the count began. This point, in
particular, must have impressed the Toltecs, because it was as though
it proved that history repeated itself. To the primitive mind, it may
also have suggested the necessity for humans to do something special
-- to make the appropriate offerings to the gods -- so as to ensure
that the world would continue for another 52 years, for such a
provision was built into the Toltec version of the calendars from the
very start.

To identify specific years within any given 52-year
"bundle," the Toltecs also imitated the practice of their Teotihuacano
forebears by naming each year for the day of the sacred almanac on
which it ended.  Because the least common divisor of both calendars
was 5, this meant that the secular year could only end on one of the
same four day-names (20 / 5), though the numeral would vary from 1
through 13 within each 52-year "bundle" of years. Thus, in effect the
days which became the "year bearers" of the Nahua peoples were those
named "Rabbit," "Reed," "Flint-Knife," and "House,' or Tochtli, Acatl,
Tecpatl, and Calli in their own language.

Another characteristic of the Toltec calendar which was
derived from earlier Mesoamerican practice was the calibration of the
beginning of the secular year with the southward zenithal passage of
the sun. At the latitude of Tula (20º N), the Toltec capital city,
this event occurred on July 24. Yet, to these newly acculturated
nomads, this event must have seemed far less auspicious than the
zenithal passage of the Pleiades (the distinctive asterism of seven
visibly clustered stars which has intrigued peoples throughout the
world), for they made this latter passage the occasion to mark the end
of each of their 52-year cycles with a special celebration called the
"binding of the years."

Perhaps geography explains much of the Toltecs'
fascination with the Pleiades, for no other native people of
Mesoamerica who came under the influence of the calendar lived so
directly beneath this star group. Indeed, at the latitude of Tula, the
Pleiades transited the zenith each year at midnight on the evening of
October 9. Although the position of all stars in the heavens changes
with time due to precession (the very slow wobble of Earth on its
axis), throughout the entire duration of the Toltec Empire this star
cluster remained within 2º of the zenith. Even by the end of Aztec
times it was within 2º.5 of the zenith, and at the present time the
Pleiades are little more than 4º from the zenith as measured from
Central Mexico.

Although the Toltec 52-year cycle began with "1 Rabbit,"
thanks to Nahua mythology the "binding of the years" ceremony took
place in the second year of the cycle, "2 Reed." This stemmed from the
Toltecs' understanding that there had been four previous creations of
the world, or "suns," -- each of them associated with one of the
cardinal points, each lasting for 676 years (13 multiples of 52), and
each having been terminated by such disasters as being devoured by
jaguars, consumed by fire, destroyed by wind, or submerged by flood.

After this last cataclysm it supposedly took a year to
"raise the heavens again," and in the second year a feast was prepared
for the gods (Krickeberg, 1980, 24). Since by tradition fire was first
acquired on this occasion, the ceremony itself involved putting out
all the fires of the past era and rekindling new ones. Thus, in the
Nahua mind the fateful moment in which the Pleiades passed through the
zenith -- in relative proximity to Orion's Belt, which they visualized
as a "fire drill" -- provided an appropriate opportunity for
demonstrating humankind's gratitude to the gods for giving them fire.
To the Toltecs -- and later the Aztecs -- this meant cutting out the
heart of a sacrificial victim and kindling the first new fire in his
chest cavity. Indeed, some form of human sacrifice was to become an
integral part of the celebration of the end of each 20-day "month," as
well as on the occasion of an ominous day called "4 Movement." The
Nahua peoples believed that the present "world," or the "fifth sun,"
had been created on a day with that name and that it would end on
another day named "4 Movement" when devastating temblors would destroy
the earth.

Any researcher who would attempt to reconstruct the
calendrical system of the Toltecs must necessarily take into account
the facts and fictions by which they lived. Certainly the most
exhaustive study that has been made of the Nahua calendar was that
carried out by the Mexican scholar Alfonso Caso (1967), who based his
correlation on the correspondence of certain key dates of the Spanish
conquest and native Indian sources. The events which he chose to
demonstrate this correspondence included Cortés's arrival in
Tenochtitlán (November 9, 1519), his forced retreat from the city
known as La Noche Triste (June 30, 1520), and his ultimate destruction
of the Aztec capital and capture of the emperor Cuauhtémoc (August 13,
1521). On the basis of these correspondences, Caso concluded that the
Nahua calendar had to have begun with the "month" of Atlcahualo,
although of 42 sources which he surveyed ranging from the sixteenth
through the twentieth century, he found a wide difference in opinion.
(Remember that what we term a "month" in the Mesoamerican calendar is
in fact an interval of 20 days, and had nothing to do with the length
of the period of the moon's revolution.) Like Caso, 14 of the sources
opted for the "month" of Atlcahualo, another 14 preferred
Tlacaxipehualiztli, 7 cited Izcalli, 3 chose Tititl, 2 Atemoztli, and
1 each Panquetzaliztli and Toxcatl. Thus, no fewer than 7 of the
18"months" have been suggested as the starting point of the Aztec
year. Even the two earliest chroniclers, the Spanish clerics Sahagún
and Durán, disagreed: The first cited a beginning Julian calendar date
of February 2; the second, March 1.

By devising a computer program which permitted me the
flexibility of testing all of the "months" of the Aztec year as
potential starting dates, I was able to establish that any of the
first 8 "months" would have produced the same three correspondences as
Caso's correlation. However, if the calendar had begun with the 9th
month, La Noche Triste would have fallen during the nemontemi, or
5-day unlucky period, whereas from the 10th through the 18th "months"
it would have occurred on the day 3 Huey Tecuilhuitl rather than on 18
Tecuilhuitontli as Caso argued. From "month" 13 on, the most critical
of the three dates -- the fall of Tenochtitlán -- would have occurred
on 7 Xocotl Huetzi rather than 2 Xocotl Huetzi, thereby rendering the
last 6 of the Aztec "months" as impossible candidates for the
beginning of their year. Thus, while any of the first 8 Aztec "months"
produced totally as accurate results as Caso claimed for AtIcahualo,
when they were tested against a fourth well known date from the
Conquest -- namely, that of the great Cholula massacre carried out by
Alvarado on May 23, 1520 -- both the 7th and 8th "months" had to be
dismissed as well.

Having now narrowed the field to the first 6 "months" of
the Aztec year, I proceeded to test each of them to determine on which
day of the secular calendar the final day of the sacred almanac fell.
This was important because Caso argued that the name of the year took
its name from that day; and since Caso had selected Atlcahualo as the
first "month" of the year, he concluded that the critical day would
have been 20 Tititl.

Choosing the final celebration of the "binding of the
years" in 1507 as my test case, I found that all 6 of the "months"
produced exactly the same results: the day "1 Rabbit" of the sacred
almanac fell on 20 Tititl of the secular calendar (corresponding to
January 22, 1507). One round earlier in the sacred almanac, however --
i.e., on May 7, 1506 -- the secular calendar which began with "month"
1, lzcalli, would again have reached the date 20 Tititl, whereas those
versions of the secular calendar which began in "months" 2 through 5
(including Caso's choice, Atlcahualo) would all have recorded 20 Huey
Tozoztli. On the other hand, the version of the secular calendar which
began with "month" 6 would have reached the date 5 Nemontemi, the last
of the so-called 5 unlucky days. Thus, through this test I had further
narrowed the field of possible candidates for the secular year's
starting "month" to the only two with truly distinctive
characteristics -- "month" 1, Izcalli, and "month" 6,' Toxcatl.

Caso claimed that the Toltecs would never have chosen the
name of one of the 5 unlucky days as the name of the year, and
therefore had ruled out the possibility of Toxcatl having served as
the beginning of the secular year. Nonetheless, several earlier
writers including Bernardino Sahagún had commented on how similar the
celebrations of its festival -- the greatest of the entire year --
were to those of the "binding of the years," so I was not about to
discount it quite yet. A further correlation was required to narrow
the choices between Izcalli and Toxcatl.

All researchers examining the Mesoamerican calendars have
been struck by how closely the Nahua version mirrors that of the Maya.
Indeed, a comparison of the day-numbers of the sacred almanac in each
of the Nahua and Maya versions reveals that they are only two days
apart! For example, what would have been the day 12 Ik in the Maya
almanac corresponded to the day "1 Rabbit" in the Aztec count.
(Remember that after the numeral 13 is passed in the sacred almanac
the day-numbers begin with 1 again.) One of the days in this
discrepancy could easily have resulted from a lapse in the count
occasioned by the chaos attending Teotihuacán's fall, while the other
might well derive from a difference in counting techniques -- the
Olmecs and the Maya starting from sunset and the Toltecs and the
Aztecs from sunrise.

However, when the day- names of these two dates are
combined with their respective numbers, we find that the relative
positions of these dates in the sacred almanac are actually 106 days
apart. This is because 12 Ik is day 142 of the Maya count whereas "1
Rabbit" is day 248 of the Aztec count. Thus, from 142 to 248
represents a shift of 106 days. In other words, when we correlate
individual days of the Maya sacred almanac with their counterparts in
the Nahua count, we find that the advance of the latter over the
former amounts to five 20-day "months," an additional 5 days for the
unlucky nemontemi period, and an extra day because the Toltecs and
their heirs did not use zeros with which to count. (To illustrate this
point, a day which would have been numbered 0 Pop by the Maya would
have been 1 Pop to the Aztecs. It seems likely that the pragmatic
Nahua saw no value in a number which meant "in progress" or "not yet
complete." By the same token, their failure to grasp the notion of
zero probably likewise accounts for their having abandoned sunset as
the time from which to tabulate their count of the days and
substituted sunrise instead.) Of course, this 106-day interval can
also be thought of as a restatement of the remainder between one round
of the 260-day sacred almanac and one round of the 365-day "Vague
Year" expressed according to the Nahua counting mode.

Naturally, with a displacement of 106 days between
corresponding dates in the two calendars, we can no longer argue for
some casual lapse having taken place between them but must recognize
instead that a carefully calculated and conscious shift had been made
of the starting point of the secular calendar. This recognition
therefore led me to test the date of zenithal sun passage over Tula as
it might have been recorded in the unaltered Maya secular calendar and
then compare that to the date as it would have been recorded in a
version of the Aztec calendar based on Caso's correlations. (For this
test, I used the example I cited above in which the day of the Maya
almanac equated to 12 Ik and that of the Aztec to "1 Rabbit.")
According to the unaltered Maya secular calendar the day was 0 Yax,
while in the Aztec version it was 1 Izcalli. This meant that I had now
established a correlation between the "months" of the Maya and Aztec
secular calendars, for if Yax corresponded to Izcalli, then Zac would
correspond with Atlcahualo, and so on.

However, to get the position of 12 Ik in the Maya almanac
to match that of the position of "1 Rabbit" in the Aztec almanac I
would have to advance the count of the latter by five "months" and six
days, as I described above. When I did this, I found that the date on
which "1 Rabbit" was reached was on 1 Toxcatl, but only if the
nemontemi had also been inserted somewhere ahead of 1 Toxcatl. (Of
course, it doesn't matter where the nemontemi is inserted between
Izcalli and Toxcatl to obtain such a result, but all early accounts of
the structure of the calendar suggest that the 5-day unlucky period
immediately preceded the beginning of the new cycle -- i.e., it was
positioned just ahead of the "month" of Toxcatl. Only with such a
configuration will the Aztec secular calendar mesh exactly with the
Maya secular calendar.

Once a convincing correlation had been established between
these two versions of the Mesoamerican calendrical system, I reasoned
that the chronology of the Nahua time-count should now be as secure
and reliable as that of the Long Count. It should, therefore, be
possible to devise a computer program to run the Nahua secular
calendar "backward" in the same manner that I had done with the Maya
calendar in order to establish when it had actually come into being. I
was well aware that, because the "Vague Year" of the Nahua "slipped"
forward one day in every four years just as the Maya secular calendar
did, the "month" of Toxcatl would have "migrated" widely through the
year. Thus, in 1521, when Cortés conquered the Aztecs, the first day
of Toxcatl fell on May 4; in 1403, on June 3; in 1091, on August 20;
and so on. Therefore, it was necessary to insert a "flag" in my
program which would search out the closest correspondence between the
beginning of Toxcatl and the "binding of the years" ceremony, which in
our calendar would have occurred in the month of October.
Concurrently, I would be looking for a "suitable" beginning date for
the southward zenithal passage of the sun -- in other words, one which
would have made "good sense" to a group of pragmatic nomads -- in
short, a straightforward beginning of the secular year with a day
numbered "1" in both the sacred and secular counts. (While the Toltecs
would have been no more likely to tamper with the religiously
sanctified sacred almanac than any other Mesoamerican people ever
were, they had good reason to shift around the secular calendar to
suit their needs, just as the Maya had done back in A.D. 48.)

As I ran the computer program "backward," I discovered
that the closest correspondence between the beginning of Toxcatl and
the "binding of the years" occurred in the year 883 ("2 Reed") when
they were just two days apart. However, if the secular calendar had
begun in the previous year ("1 Rabbit"), as tradition indicated it
had, then the July 24 zenithal passage of the sun would have occurred
on the date 7 Atlcahualo -- certainly not a rational day of
"beginnings." Going back a further 52-year cycle, I found that the
beginning of Toxcatl fell on October 24 in the year 831 (some 15 days
after the zenithal passage of the Pleiades), whereas the southward
passage of the zenithal sun took place on July 24, 830. In the secular
calendar, this happened on 14 lzcalli -- again hardly an auspicious
day on which to begin a calendar. If, however, we go back yet one more
interval of 52 years, we find that Toxcatl would have commenced on the
day November 6 (a full 27 days following the zenithal passage of the
Pleiades), but that the southward passage of the zenithal sun on July
24, 778, would have coincided with the day 1 Cuetzpallin ("Lizard") of
the sacred almanac and 1 Izcalli of the secular count. Although there
is every reason to believe that a considerable period of planning and
anticipation had to have preceded this date, the internal structure of
the calendar itself argues for its having been inaugurated on July 24,
778. Indeed, this conclusion finds strong reinforcement in the
research of Krickeberg (1980, 209), who states that the Nahua believed
that the present "sun," or "world," came into being in the equivalent
of our year 726. When we realize that this notion places the creation
of the "Toltec world" exactly 52 years before the starting date of
their calendar, we can appreciate how quickly these recent nomads from
the desert had come to embrace one of the most fundamental concepts of
Mesoamerican civilization -- to wit, the cyclical repetition of
history.

By selecting 1 Cuetzpallin 1 Izcalli as the beginning date
of their secular calendar, the Toltecs also assured that their first
celebration of the "binding of the years" -- on October 9, 779 -- fell
on the auspicious day of "1 Death" in the sacred almanac. By the same
token, if they had retained an awareness of the 52nd sunset after the
summer solstice  -- i.e., August 13 -- they could not have failed to
appreciate that it fell on 8 Cuetzpallin 1 Atlcahualo, exactly one
"month" after the southward passage of the zenithal sun. And
similarly, they would have found that the autumnal equinox (September
22) occurred on 9 Cuetzpallin 1 Tozoztontli, so they must have felt
quite satisfied in having established such an impressive measure of
consonance with the rhythms of the heavens. It is also interesting
that by inaugurating their secular count on July 24, 778, the Toltecs
had, in fact, made Izcalli the first "month" of their year. However,
unlike the Maya and the other Mesoamericans whose 5-day unlucky period
fell just ahead of the beginning of the secular year, the Toltecs had
chosen to shift it so that it more closely approximated what they
considered to be a celestial event of yet greater significance -- the
midnight zenithal passage of the Pleiades --hence its insertion just
ahead of the "month" of Toxcatl.

In addition to the astronomically fixed celebrations of
the zenithal passages of the sun and the Pleiades, there were the
equinoxes and solstices that occupied defined positions in the ritual
year as well. Of these, it would appear that it was the winter
solstice that became the occasion for the most important celebration,
because the sun was then at its farthest remove south and there was
need to ensure its return to more northerly latitudes. One of the
lasting legacies of the Nahua calendar is the annual celebration which
now serves to mark the feast day of the patron saint of Mexico, Our
Lady of Guadalupe. In 1531 a newly converted Indian peasant by the
name of Juan Diego, trudging across the hillside at Tepeyac just north
of Tenochtiitlán, claims to have seen the Virgin. Although the Spanish
bishop was at first dubious, a shrine was erected there which has
since become the most important pilgrimage site in Catholic Mexico.
Sahagún, in writing about the place in the 1580's, was already
"suspicious" about both its name and its function, for by then it had
become known as "Our Lady of Guadalupe-Tonantzin," the latter
appelation being that of the Aztec sun-goddess. He also observed that
the temple of the sun goddess had stood on the same hill in
pre-Conquest times, and he was at pains to explain why, of all the
churches dedicated to the Virgin, this was the only one at which the
Indians worshiped (Sahagún, 1981, 329). Had he looked more deeply into
the matter, he would likewise have been intrigued by the fact that the
annual feast day falls on December 12, which in the Julian calendar
marked the winter solstice!

In the same vein, one cannot help wondering how, in the
wake of the Spanish conquest, the various individual Indian villages
of Mexico and Guatemala came to choose their local patron saints from
among the array which the Catholic church offered them, and whether
the choice of any given "saint's day" might not have been simply a
thinly veiled artifice for continuing a time-honored religious
celebration from the pre-Columbian past.

In addition to the fixed religious festivals of the Nahua
year were those which "migrated" through the seasons with the slippage
of the secular calendar. The final day of each 20-day "month" provided
the occasion for a celebration which almost invariably involved some
form of human sacrifice, as did the occurrence of the feared day "4
Movement." By Aztec times, these ritualized killings had reached such
a peak that the birth of each new day was greeted by the offering of a
human heart.

TOLTEC HISTORY AND THE CALENDAR     

Because Itzcóatl, the fourth emperor of the Aztecs, had
all the history books of earler civilizations burned, the fragmentary
and contradictory records that we have of the Toltecs derive chiefly
from two sources: lxtlilxóchitl's Historia Tolteca-Chichemeca and the
Anales de Cuauhtitlán, both of which are post-Conquest documents that
purport to list the Toltec kings and the lengths of their respective
reigns. Although each of them lists 10 rulers, only three names are
common to both lists and only one of their reigns overlaps the same
period of time. Indeed, the Historia's list is particularly suspect,
because six of the rulers are therein said to have reigned for exactly
52 years and the last -- Quetzalcóatl -- supposedly reigned for 74.

Moreover, because the Toltecs lacked the Long Count,
considerable debate has arisen among scholars as to the particular
52-year cycle in which any given event may have taken place.
Contributing to the confusion has been the contention of some
researchers that the Toltecs used a modified version of the Mixtec
calendar, which caused their dates to be 12 years at variance with
(i.e., earlier than) the time-count inherited from the Olmecs (Davies,
1977, 441-466). As Caso has pointed out, however, such an argument is
totally at odds with what we know about the precision of Mesoamerican
timekeeping; indeed, it does nothing to explain the striking
correspondences between the later Aztec calendar and the earlier Maya
version of the same time-count which we discussed earlier. Therefore,
the chronology given below is that based on the version of the Aztec
calendar in use at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards.

If we disregard for the moment the more legendary accounts
of the earliest nomad chieftains (for example, the earliest chieftain,
Mixcóatl, or "Cloud Serpent," supposedly laid the groundwork for the
first Toltec capital at Ixtapalapa, to the southeast of modern Mexico
City), then perhaps one of the first events recorded in Toltec history
to which we can assign a reasonably reliable date was the birth in the
year Ce Acatl ("1 Reed") of the chieftain-king who took the name
"Quetzalcóatl" and who later was deified by his subjects. (One should
keep in mind, however, that the original deity named Quetzalcóatl was
a culture hero who supposedly first acquainted the peoples of
Mesoamerica with agriculture and the calendar and whose representation
as a feathered serpent is repeatedly juxtaposed with a second deity --
Tlaloc, the rain-god -- on the façade of one of the principal pyramids
at Teotihuacán. It is likewise interesting that in this
representation, Quetzalcóatl is clearly associated with seashells,
implying a link with the distant sea.) The son of another chieftain
named Mixcóatl and his wife Chimalmán, the boy was named "Ce Acatl
Topiltzin," the latter appelation meaning "our prince." The year which
most convincingly coincides with this event was A.D. 947. In the year
"2 Rabbit" (974) his father established the Toltec capital at
Tulancingo, but when Quetzalcóatl ascended to the throne three years
later (in the year "5 House"), he moved his capital to Tula, some 100
km (60 mi) to the west. (Sanders believes that the Toltecs had
occupied the region surrounding Tula as early as A.D. 700 [Adams,
1991, 220], while Krickeberg dates the actual founding of the city to
the year 856 [1980, 424]. Although the terrain surrounding Tula would
have made a gridded master plan difficult to carry out, at least a
part of the city is laid out with an orientation based on the August
13 alignments found at Teotihuacán [Adams, 1991, 23 11.) This move
appears to have been a response to pressure exerted by the so-called
historic Olmec, or "Olmec Uixtotin," who at that time controlled both
the valleys of Mexico and Puebla. Despite having enjoyed a relatively
long reign of peace and prosperity in his new capital, Quetzalcóatl
was forced by a power struggle within the Toltec hierarchy to flee
with his retinue to the Gulf coast in the next year named "1 Reed"
(999). Although the deposed king died on reaching the coast, legend
has it that he was subsequently reincarnated as the morning star (the
planet Venus), having vowed to return one day rightfully to reclaim
his throne. His retinue continued to the east, arriving on the coast
of the Yucatán, and then moved inland to subjugate the by then almost
moribund Maya city-state of Chichén Itzá.

Meanwhile, back in the Toltec capital of Tula, new
chieftain-kings came and went. Matlacxóchitl is reported as having
died in the year "10 Rabbit" (1034), whereas Nauhyotzin, his
successor, passed away in the year "12 House" (1049). Matlaccoatzin
then assumed the throne and ruled until his death in the year "1
House" (1077). He was followed on the throne by Tlicohuatzin, who
reigned until the year "9 Rabbit" (1098). The subsequent events of
Toltec history all took place within the reign of a king called
Huémac.

Little else comes down to us in the way of Toltec history
apart from certain "innovations" which they developed in carrying out
their calendrical rituals. In the year "7 Rabbit" (1122), for
instance, we are told that the Toltecs initiated the practice of
sacrificing children to the rain-god, and in the year "8 Rabbit"
(1162), as a consequence of certain "auguries," they note that they
began sacrificing prisoners by shooting them with arrows, a practice
they claim to have learned from the Huastecs. When war broke out five
years later (in the year "13 Reed," or 1167), the Toltecs report that
they began the sacrifice of prisoners by flaying them. Ironically,
though most "civilized" societies would have found such practices
totally repugnant, for the Toltecs they represented evidence of their
advance from nomadic hunting and gathering to a life as settled
cultivators, for these innovations in human sacrifice must be seen as
attempts to propitiate newly acquired agricultural deities, such as
Tlaloc and Xipe. None of these "refinements" seem to have stayed the
hand of destiny, however, for in the following year, " 1 Flint-Knife,"
Chichimecs swarmed in from the northern desert and laid waste Tula,
causing Huémac to flee southward with his court. It was at this time
that Huémac relocated the Toltec capital to Chapultepec, on the
western outskirts of present day Mexico City. His kingdom lost and his
subjects scattered over the countryside, a despondent King Huémac
committed suicide in the year "7 Rabbit" (1174). Although bountiful
harvests were recorded in the year "2 Reed" (1195) -- when the Toltecs
celebrated what was to be their final "binding of the years" ceremony
to ensure the world's survival for another 52 years -- this belated
stroke of good fortune was not enough to rekindle their vitality as a
people, and in the year "1 Flint-Knife" (1220) they disappeared as an
organized force from the pages of pre-Columbian history.

THE ROLE OF VENUS IN THE CEREMONIAL LIFE

OF THE NAHUA PEOPLES

Although what passes for Toltec history is a mixture of
legend and fact, it does provide us with a temporal framework against
which we can assess certain of the key events whose commemoration by
the Aztecs speaks to the continuance of a lengthy tradition. For the
purposes of studying how the Toltecs actually used the calendrical
information to which they fell heir, we should keep in mind that their
domination of the Mexican plateau lasted roughly 500 years -- i.e.,
from the late eighth to the early thirteenth century.

Within that time span, there were nine celebrations of the
"binding of the years," namely, in 779, 831, 883, 935, 987, 1039,
1091, 1143, and 1195. Within the same period, there were four times
when the Venusian double-cycle coincided with such an event. These
occasions were in 831, 935, 1039, and 1143. Therefore, if any
correspondence is to be found between the calendars as handed down to
the Aztecs and the Venusian events, it must focus on these four years,
in all of which a superior conjunction took place.

We have already remarked how the Nahua peoples of the
Mexican plateau defined the four phases of Venus in the Codex Borgia,
assigning a 243-day period to its existence as a morning star,
followed by a 77-day period of invisibility, then a 252-day period as
an evening star, and finally another 12-day disappearance into the
underworld before it returned once more as a morning star.

We have also commented on the difficulty which the
Mesoamericans had in accurately defining the planet's movements, due
to their failure to understand the nature of its "disappearances."
While modern astronomers can mathematically pinpoint the moment of
Venus's conjunctions with the sun, the Mesoamericans had to rely on
their first visual sightings of the planet, either as an evening star
just after sunset or as a morning star just before sunrise.

In one of the more valuable papers to emanate from the
1984 Symposium on Archaeoastronomy held at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico, J. Daniel Flores Gutiérrez presented a detailed
computer analysis of the trajectories of Venus as they occurred over
more than 300 years of Mesoamerican history. In addition to making the
point that the "binding of the years" festivals of the Toltecs and
Aztecs were of two alternating types --Venus as an evening star in the
years 1195, 1299, 1403, and 1507, and as a morning star in the years
1247, 1351, and 1455 -- his study revealed that, regardless of the
type of festival, no Venusian event (e.g., the planet's disappearance,
reappearance, or elongation -- the latter being its angular distance
from the sun)  correlated with any key date of the solar year
whatsoever. The author was thus left expressing the hope that someone
might yet find one or more of the planet's periods -- i.e., of 584
days, of 8 years, of 104 years, or of 260 years -- in the structure of
the codices (Flores Gutiérrez, 1991, 353).

However, because we are unable to make any sense out of
the motions of Venus against the background of our own calendar,
before we abandon all hope of finding a meaningful temporal pattern to
its movements, we should examine them in reference to the indigenous
Mesoamerican calendar. In Table 6, all of the conjunctions of Venus,
superior as well as inferior, that occurred in the years "2 Reed" --
i.e., at the time of the "binding of the years" -- are listed
according to the dates of their occurrence in both Julian and Nahua
calendars.

It is readily apparent from Table 6 that with each
successive celebration of the Venusian 104-year "double-cycle," the
conjunction of the planet with the sun moved forward in the year about
a month, according to the Julian calendar. However, because during
this same period the Mesoamerican calendar had "slipped" forward some
26 days (i.e., 13 days during each 52-year "bundle" of years),
according to the indigenous time-count the date of any given pair of
conjunctions never varied by more than 2 days --  the greatest
discrepancy having taken place in the twelfth century. On the other
hand, between any two successive pairs of conjunctions a 4-, 5-, or
6-day hiatus did, in fact, occur. However, whereas a forward shift of
more than seven months took place according to the Julian calendar,
there was no more than a 33-day forward movement in the date of the
Mesoamerican sacred almanac -- i.e., from 12 Ollin to 5 Cuetzpallin.
Moreover, as can be seen, with the exception of the first four
occurrences and two of the last three occurrences, all the
conjunctions of Venus took place within the Nahua "month" of
Tozoztontli.

Table 6 - Dates of Conjunctions of Venus, A.D. 727-1507

Year   Julian Date  Type*  Day of Toltec / AztecCalendar

727   November 2    S     12 Ollin 9 Huey Tozontontli

779   October 20    I     12 Ollin 9 Huey Tozontontli

831   October 1     S     6 Ozomatli 3 Huey Tozontontli

883  September 18   I     6 Ozomatli 3 Huey Tozontontli

935   August 31     S     1 Miquiztli 18 Tozontontli

987   August 17     I     13 Coatl 17 Tozontontli

1039  July 31       S     9 Cipactli 13 Tozontontli

1091  July 17       I     8 Xóchitl 12 Tozontontli

1143  July 2        S     6 Tecpatl 10 Tozontontli

1195  June 17       I     4 Cozcacuauhtli 8 Tozontontli

1247  June 4        S     4 Cozcacuauhtli 8 Tozontontli

1299  May 18       I      13 Malinalli 4 Tozontontli

1351   May 6        S     1 Acatl 5 Tozontontli

1403   April 18     I     9 Tochtli 20 Tlacaxipehualiztli

1455   April 6      S     10 Atl 1 Tozontontli

1507   March 19     I     5 Cuetzpallin 16 Tlacaxipehualitztli

*S - Superior; I - Inferior.

As mentioned earlier, it was not, however, the
conjunctions of Venus and the sun which the Mesoamericans were
defining but rather the planet's mysterious disappearances into the
"underworld." Because they never understood the celestial mechanics
behind its disappearances, they could never really pinpoint the
planet's nearest actual approach to the sun. Instead, all they could
do is record its last visual sighting in the east (in the case of a
superior conjunction) and its first sighting in the west. Therefore,
all they were really aware of was that Venus -- on its longest visit
to the underworld -- usually disappeared during the "month" of
Atlcahualo and usually reappeared during the "month" of Toxcatl. A
greater precision than this was impossible to obtain, but how this
correlated to the reconvergence of the sacred almanac and the secular
calendar is not readily apparent, for in each of these years the
initial date of the year, "1 Rabbit," fell anywhere from 2 to 3 Julian
months ahead of conjunction and always about a Julian month ahead of
the planet's disappearance.

It is, therefore, quite apparent that, when calibrated
against the Mesoamerican calendar, the movements of Venus showed a
remarkable cyclicity, suggesting that, on average, the planet's
disappearances and reappearances could often be "predicted" within a
day or two. Indeed, never would Venus fail to reach its expected place
in the heavens for more than six days. Perhaps by modern scientific
standards a prediction this approximate would not constitute
"precision," but it must nevertheless have sufficed to reinforce the
confidence of the masses in the priestly hierarchy, which was probably
a consideration of some importance in itself.

However, to me, the lack of a precise correspondence
between one of these Venusian events and the solar year strongly
suggests that scholars have been looking in the wrong place to
calibrate the planet's movements. Instead of trying to match either
the last day that Venus is visible before a conjunction or the first
day it is visible after one with the beginning of one 104-year period
or the end of another, perhaps we should be attempting to calibrate
the planet's cycle against the solar year at a time when we are
certain that it will be visible against some fixed horizon marker.
This might be Venus's extreme northerly or southerly rising or setting
position -- as delineated by such an alignment as that discovered by
Horst Hartung from Uxmal to the pyramid of Nohpat in the flat expanse
of the Yucatán -- or by its rise over some commanding topographic
feature in a region of more rugged terrain.

Inasmuch as it was Venus's heliacal rise as the morning
star that most concerned the Mesoamericans, it seems very probable
that the "binding, of the years" festival with which it is supposed to
have coincided had to have been one of the "morning star" variety --
i.e., one that occurred in the 104-year cycle associated with the
years 1247, 1351, and 1455. (Note that each of these dates falls
within the Aztec era rather than in Toltec times. Furthermore, it is
well established that a Venusian period did not coincide with the
Aztecs' final celebration of the ceremony in 1507.) It is also known
that, although the ceremony itself was held in a year named "2 Reed,"
such as 1455, the new 52-year cycle actually began in the previous
year which was "1 Rabbit."

Among the Nahuatl-speaking peoples of the Mexican plateau,
one of the principal centers for the worship of Venus was Cholula on
the western edge of the Puebla basin. (Others were Teotitlán del
Camino and Tehuacán in the valley between Cholula and Oaxaca.) Indeed,
Cholula was known to have been both an important market center and
also the primary pilgrimage site of highland Mexico. After the fall
from grace of the Toltec king Quetzalcóatl and his banishment from
Tula, he stopped first at Cholula on his way into exile in the east.

For anyone surveying the eastern horizon from Cholula,
there is no question but that the most impressive feature within view
is the great snow-capped cone of Orizaba, Mexico's highest mountain
(5701 m, 18,700 ft). It is interesting and no doubt significant that
in Nahuatl the peak is known as Citlaltépetl, or "the mountain of the
star." One has good reason to believe that the "star" in question
might well have been Venus, because throughout Toltec and Aztec times,
the brightest star to rise in the vicinity of Orizaba was Spica
(magnitude 0.97), but even it rose 6º away to the south. It is true,
however, than in Teotihuacano times Spica rose near Orizaba for about
a century, but it seems very unlikely that the Nahuatl name for the
peak would have commemorated an event which had not been observed for
nearly a millennium. (Even stranger is the explanation given for the
mountain's name by the Spanish writer Clavijero, who claims that it
received its appelation in colonial times after the peak had
experienced a 20-year series of eruptions beginning in 1545 [Macazaga
Ordoño, 1979, 451 ].)

From the clues at hand -- namely, that Cholula was a major
pilgrimage center dedicated to the worship of Quetzalcóatl (i.e., the
planet Venus), that the most striking physical feature within view of
Cholula is the cone of Orizaba, that the native place-name for the
feature was "mountain of the star," and that no bright star (other
than possibly Venus) rose anywhere near the peak -- the hypothesis
which remains to be tested is this: If Venus does indeed rise over the
mountain, when does it do so, and does this in any way coincide with
the beginning or ending of the solar year as known to the Nahuas?

Using a computer, a detailed study of the trajectory of
Venus as seen from Cholula was made for the entire period of Nahua
ascendancy over the Mexican plateau -- i.e., from the eighth through
the fifteenth century. This allowed seven full 104-year Venusian
cycles to be examined, beginning in 830 and ending in 1454. One of the
results of this exercise was the discovery that Venus was found to
rise six times over Orizaba in any given eight-year period. This
cyclical pattern is sketched out in Table 7.

Thus, every eight years these Venusian events are repeated
at the same place in the sky within a day or two of the time they were
last witnessed. In the second and seventh years of the cycle Venus
puts in no appearance over the mountain at all, whereas in the third,
fifth, and eighth years it rises over Orizaba in the spring (March and
April). However, in the first, fourth, and sixth years of the cycle
the heliacal rise of Venus over Orizaba will be seen to occur in the
autumn months of October and November. It is on these occasions, of
course, that its fateful appearance most closely coincides with the
midnight zenithal passage of the Pleiades. Even so, from the early
twelfth century to the mid-fifteenth century, the date of Venus's rise
over Orizaba advanced about 10 days (from November 11 to November 1),
so a truly convincing case for a horizon-based calibration of the
planet's movements with the "binding of the years" ritual still
remains somewhat in doubt.

Table 7 - Dates of Venus's Rise over Orizaba

Year of Cycle   Approximate Dates 

1               Late October - Early November
2               ------
3               Late April (19 -21)
4               Mid - November (10 -12)
5               Late March ( 25 - 28)
6               Mid - October ( 15 - 18)
7               ------
8              Early April ( 8 - 10)

THE GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE OF TOLTEC INFLUENCE

At the peak of the Toltecs' power their capital city of
Tula probably numbered between 30,000 and 40,000 inhabitants, and its
trading network extended from as far south as the Nicoya Peninsula of
Costa Rica (from which it imported polychrome ceramics), eastward into
the Yucatán Peninsula, and as far northward as the present-day
southwestern United States (where the architectural influences of both
Tlaloc, the rain-god, and Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent, may be
identified). Interestingly, although Plumbate pottery from Soconusco
shows up in Tula, no metal has ever been found there, despite the fact
that the Toltec period is known to have coincided with the first
appearance of metallurgy in Mesoamerica. (Antagonism with the
Purépecha, the first practitioners of the new craft, may well be the
explanation.) Nonetheless, mining colonies had been established in the
northern desert -- probably as early as Teotihuacano times -- to
supply semiprecious stones to the civilizations of Central Mexico, but
about the year A.D. 600 a southward retreat had begun which had all
but abandoned the Chichimec "outback" to the nomads by 850. A Toltec
re-expansion into this region appears to have taken place about 900,
and Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua seems to have been a
thriving Toltec trading outpost by about 1050. Although Central
Mexican influences had begun to show up in western Mexico at such
sites as Ixtépete near modem Guadalajara and at Ixtlán del Rio in the
borderlands of Nayarit from about A.D. 300 onward, these contacts were
considerably strengthened during Toltec times. Contact with the Maya
area of the Yucatán was not limited to commerce as we have seen, for
about the year 1000, Toltec warriors moved in to establish a new
militaristic regime in the old ceremonial center of Chichén Itzá, not
only giving that place a new lease on life but materially altering its
architecture, art, and religion as well. Not the least of these
cultural influences was the introduction of the cult of Quetzalcóatl,
who became known to the Maya by the name of Kukulkan.

Geographically closer at hand were such ceremonial centers
as Cholula and Xochicalco which, despite their proximity to the Toltec
heartland, managed to retain a fairly strong Teotihuacano character.
It would seem that the neighbors nearest to the Toltecs who received
the most cultural impact were the Mixtecs. Although they had
originally received the calendar by way of the Zapotecs, together with
the hieroglyphic system of dots and bars to record numerals, under
Toltec influence they abandoned the use of bars. As a result, we find
that all of the beautifully colored Mixtec codices which have been
preserved define calendar dates only with dots.

XOCHICALCO AND THE ZENITH TUBE

Situated on a mountaintop about 20 km (12 mi)
south-southwest of Cuernavaca (latitude 18º.8 N) is the fortified Late
Classic ceremonial center of Xochicalco. Its architecture shows the
strong influence of Teotihuacán, and it has been argued by some
scholars that the hilltop city represented one of the refuges of the
fleeing elite of that great metropolis as it came under attack from
the desert nomads. Quetzalcóatl finds vivid representation there along
the sides of the main pyramid, and the site also boasts one of the
largest ball courts of all Mesoarnerica. Astronomically, the city's
chief claim to fame is its zenith tube and observation chamber
hollowed out of the living rock. Having an aperture of 40 cm (16 in.),
the vertical tube opens into a subterranean cavern some 8.5 m (27.9
ft) beneath it and was obviously used to calibrate the zenithal
passage of the sun (Broda, 1986, 92). At Xochicalco's latitude, this
is an event which takes place on May 15 and July 29 each year. It
would appear that the inspiration for this device was the similar
feature found in Mound P at Monte Albán, which heralded the heliacal
rise of the star Capella (magnitude 0.08) on the morning of the first
zenithal sun passage over that site. Interestingly, in the seventh
century A.D., when the city was probably founded, the heliacal rise of
the Pleiades took place on May 15 over Popocatépetl, as seen from
Xochicalco. Since no evidence has ever been presented to argue for a
separate and independent calendar beginning on May 15, it must be
presumed that the zenith tube served the function of calibrating a
locally observable phenomenon within the existing Mesoamerican
calendar.

The German geographer Franz Tichy has argued that Pyramids
C and D at Xochicalco served to mark key astronomical alignments as
viewed from the altar of glyphs, which is located directly between
them. Looking eastward, he finds that the northern corner of Pyramid C
marks the sunrise azimuth on the summer solstice, while the southern
corner of the same structure defines the sunrise azimuth at the winter
solstice. Turning toward the west, he finds that the northern corner
of Pyramid D is aligned to the sunset azimuth on the days of the
zenithal sun passage -- i.e., May 15 and July 29. A line drawn through
the middle of both pyramids and over the stela on the intermediate
altar divides the solar year exactly in half, he states (Broda, 1986,
85). It seems clear, therefore, that although Teotihuacán had itself
fallen victim to the barbarians, in places like Xochicalco, the torch
of astronomical knowledge had still not been extinguished in Late
Classic times.

EL TAJIN AND THE PYRAMID OF THE NICHES

Nestled in the karstic hills of northern Veracruz is the
architecturally elaborate and intriguing site of El Tajín. Although
evidence of settlement in the area goes back as far as 1500 B.C.
(Adams, 1991, 232), life at the village level appears to have emerged
by Late Preclassic times but seemingly without noticeable Olmec
influence. The region surrounding El Tajín appears to have been
solidly within the Totonac cultural sphere then just as it is today.
During its earlier stage of city growth (A.D. 100-500), El Tajín was
strongly influenced by Teotihuacán and may well have served as a
commercial outlier for the plateau metropolis in the supply of lowland
tropical products. However, its greatest development architecturally
and influentially occurred as Teotihuacán's power waned and finally
disappeared (A.D. 500-1100), and therefore the construction of most of
its spectacular urban core occurred about the same time as the
emergence of the Toltecs.

Although no fewer than 11 ball courts have been found at
the site, testifying to the great ritual importance of the game, the
crowning architectural achievement of El Tajín is the so-called
Pyramid of the Niches. It received this name because each of its four
sides is decorated by boxlike niches whose number is invariably
described in the literature as totaling 365. This in turn has prompted
the suggestion that the structure commemorated the length of the solar
year and that small stucco figurines representing the prevailing deity
of each day may have occupied the niches.

However, it is readily apparent to anyone taking the time
to actually count the niches that their number does not total 365. The
reason for this is that the front, or east, side of the pyramid is
surmounted by a staircase which disrupts the basic symmetry of the
structure, requiring some of the niches to have been telescoped to
about half of their standard size. Even so, one can count only 26 such
features on each side of the staircase, yielding a total for the east
face of 52. Inset into the median of the staircase itself are five
panels, the four lowest of which are each composed of three smaller
niches. It is uncertain whether the topmost fifth panel, which is
noticeably damaged, likewise contained three niches or whether this
contained only one central niche, yielding a total of 13 rather than
15 such embellishments in the staircase as a whole. It is additionally
uncertain whether these 13 or 15 smaller niches are to be reckoned
into the total for the structure as a whole. If not, the front face
contains 52 niches; when they are included, it contains either 65 or
67 niches.

Figure 55.

The front, or east, face of the Pyramid of the Niches at El Tajín in
northern Veracruz state. A major ceremonial center of the Totonac
people (one of whom is seen in traditional dress in the foreground) at
least since A.D. 600, El Tajín shows the influence of both Teotihuacán
and the Toltecs. As explained in the text, there is some question as
to how the structure shown above could have functioned calendrically.
because it contains considerably fewer than the 365 niches so often
stated in the literature.

Despite the destruction of most of the pyramid's top tier,
it appears that each of its four sides could have contained 5 niches,
yielding a total of 20. However, if the top tier of the pyramid
actually served as an open temple, its front, or east, side may have
had a doorway in place of 3 of the niches and still preserved its
structural symmetry. Thus, we must add either 17 or 20 additional
niches at the top of the pyramid, bringing the total for the east side
and topmost tier to a minimum of 69 (if we disregard the small
staircase niches and allow for an open temple at the top) or a maximum
of 87 (if we count all the staircase niches but allow for no open
temple at the summit).

The remaining three sides -- i.e., the south, west, and
north -- are symmetrical in that each of them has a total of 87
niches. Thus, together these three faces yield a total of 261 niches,
which when added to those on the east side and top tier of the pyramid
come to either 330 or 348, depending on how you wish to count the
latter. (However, so pervasive has the contention been that El Tajín's
architectural jewel contains 365 niches that the scale model of the
pyramid which was constructed for display in the Museum of
Anthropology in Mexico City was distorted so that it would total this
number!) When I attempted to point out in a scholarly article the
discrepancy between the actual number of niches which can be counted
and the theoretical figure of 365, my observation was dismissed with
the comment that "the remaining [17 to 35] niches were buried beneath
the staircase." If true, such an argument pointedly begs the question
of how the pyramid could then have functioned as a counter for the
length of the solar year.

If, on the other hand, we recognize the futility of
attempting to argue that the niches served to record a 365-day count,
especially when anywhere from 17 to 35 of the niches were hidden
beneath the staircase, quite another reading of the pyramid's purpose
is possible. Suppose we take the 52 niches on the east face as one
count, the 13 (or 15?) smaller niches in the staircase as a second
count, and the 20 niches (or were there only 17?) in the top tier as a
third count, we find three of the key multiples of the Mesoamerican
calendar neatly defined in three separate architectural components of
the structure. If the remaining three sides of the structure are
conceived as forming a fourth count (totaling 261 niches), we have as
close an accommodation to the length of the sacred almanac as
architectural symmetry permits. It is thus possible that the Pyramid
of the Niches may have functioned as a calendrical counter, but if so,
it was more likely to have done so for the 260 days of the divinatory
almanac than for the 365 days of the solar year.

The dating of El Tajín's florescence and the overwhelming
emphasis of its sculptural detail on human sacrifice (Kampen, 1972)
strongly suggest that the site received considerable Toltec influence.
Hieroglyphics repeatedly refer to a figure identified as "13 Rabbit,"
who may have been one of the city's leading rulers. Depictions of
"Eagle Knights" also strengthen the impression that warriors and
militarism played key roles in the city's development. But, aside from
the possible calendrical associations of the Pyramid of the Niches, El
Tajín demonstrates no real involvement in matters astronomical.
Ensconced amongst a myriad of low limestone hills, it has a situation
which all but precludes any kind of long-distance orientation, be it
solsticial or otherwise. Located on the lower slopes of the Sierra
Madre Oriental, it experiences a climate which is dominated by
overcast skies and light drizzle through much of the year. Indeed, its
very name commemorates the storm-god, and El Tajín has itself fallen
victim to the destructive force of hurricane-driven rains.
Commemorating astronomical cycles in stone appears to have been El
Tajín's sole, but very distinctive, contribution to the evolution of
the Mesoamerican calendar.

THE THREE STONE RINGS OF ZEMPOALA

Unlike the sequestered ceremonial center of El Tajín,
Zempoala, the Totonac capital, was situated in a far more open setting
near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, about 40 km (25 mi) north of
present-day Veracruz. No doubt because of its accessibility, it had
very early been reached by Olmec influences from the south, for as we
have already noted, it was one of the first ceremonial centers in the
central Veracruz region to demonstrate a solsticial orientation -- in
this instance, to Orizaba, or Citlaltépetl, on the winter solstice
sunset. Its proximity to Cortés's toehold in Veracruz also made it the
first Mesoamerican city of any size to be visited by the Spanish
conquistadores.

In the central plaza of Zempoala, just beneath the massive
pyramids that frame its northeastern corner, are three intriguing
rings of stone, each fashioned of rounded beach cobbles cemented
together to form a series of small, stepped pillars. The largest of
the rings contains 40 of the stepped pillars, the middle-sized ring
has 28 such features, and the smallest ring numbers 13 stepped pillars
around its circumference. It would appear that the three rings were
used to calibrate different astronomical cycles, possibly by moving a
marker or an idol from one stepped pillar to the next with each
passing day (in somewhat the same way that has been suggested for
recording the passage of time at the Pyramid of the Niches).

Figure 56.

The three stone rings of Zempoala as viewed from the top of the main
pyramid. Inasmuch as the three rings are surmounted by 13, 28, and 40
steplike pillars, respectively, it appears that they were used by the
Totonac priests as counting devices to keep track of eclipse cycles.

Deciphering the smallest, 13-pillar ring is probably the
easiest and most straightforward task, for one cycle of this ring very
likely constituted a so-called trecena, or 13-day interval, of the
sacred calendar. Used in conjunction with the middle-sized, 28-pillar
ring, it could very well have defined a 364-day "year," much like that
found by our "New World Hipparchus" at the outset of his calendrical
experimentation. Or it might have defined the number of lunations in a
year.

But what was the base from which the 28-pillar ring was
derived? Was it simply the number of trecenas within a given year? If
so, it certainly would have been possible to distinguish between the
first 20 and the last 8, so as to define the length of the sacred
almanac, if that was desired. Or was the 28 derived from an
approximation of the number of days between full moons? Or from the
number of "lunar mansions" in which the moon "rested" on its
never-ending celestial journey? (The latter concept is familiar in
early Middle Eastern and Asian astronomy.) Whether it was used alone
or in conjunction with the 13-pillar ring, a lunar association seems
very likely.

The largest ring is the most enigmatic, for no cycle based
on 40 is known from Mesoamerica, although it obviously could have
served to define two cycles of 20. Naturally, if it had been used as
one component in defining a "year," then we might have expected to
find some means of recording nine full circuits of the ring -i.e., 9 x
40 = 360 -but no such "device" is present. If it had been used in
conjunction with the middle-sized ring, it would, of course, define an
interval of 1120 days (40 x 28), which bears no relationship to either
the sacred or secular calendar. However, had it been used together
with the smallest ring of 13 pillars, it could have calibrated two
full cycles of the sacred almanac, or 40 x 13 = 520 days. The latter,
known as a double tzolkin in Mayan terminology, equates to three
eclipse half years, and thereby provides a useful interval in
predicting eclipses. (An eclipse year is the length of time it takes
for the sun to move from one of its intersections with the path of the
moon, or node, until it returns to the same intersection, or node. It
measures 346.62 days in length. Hence, an eclipse half-year totals
173.31 days, and three eclipse half years add up to 519.93 days. In
Mesoamerican terms, this value would be rounded to 520 days, or the
equivalent of two rounds of the 260-day sacred almanac.) It is,
therefore, quite possible that by using the three rings together, the
Totonac priests were able to calibrate the movements of the moon
closely enough so as to know when it might next be "devoured." In any
event, there is every reason to believe that the three stone rings of
Zempoala afford yet another bit of evidence testifying to the
intellectual curiosity and architectural ingenuity of the early
Mesoamericans.

(Note: The author has published a revised version of the
interpretation of the stone rings at Zempoala in a later paper.  It
may be accessed from the Home Page of this web site.)

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