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The Thirteen Days of Trecena 20

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The Thirteen Days of Trecena 20

Trecena 20 runs from 1 Tochtli through 13 Xochitl, flower, its span carrying rabbit, water, dog, monkey, grass, reed, jaguar, eagle, vulture, movement and flint before closing on Xochitl, the twentieth and final day sign of the whole tonalpohualli vocabulary, a fitting close: the count's last trecena ends on the count's own last named sign before the entire 260 day cycle restarts at 1 Cipactli. This closing coincidence is the plain product of the arithmetic that governs every trecena, thirteen numbers advancing against twenty day signs with no common factor beyond one, but its arrival exactly here, at the sequence's true end, would not have been lost on the tonalpouhque reading the full tonalamatl table in order, the flower sign's own associations with song, nobility and the count's own culmination closing the year's reading on a note of accomplishment.

After Xochitl at 13, the calendar does not pause: the very next day begins the 260 day count over again at 1 Cipactli under Tonacatecuhtli's patronage, the same trecena this survey opened with, so the tonalpohualli is properly understood not as a line with a true ending but as a wheel, each of its twenty trecenas a fixed station a diviner returned to again and again across a lifetime of readings.

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