I’m happy to report wrapping up the third Nowlin Road segment of my childhood memoir KID STUFF which I’m calling “Playmate.” It covers my ages 8 to 10 (third and fourth grade) when I started being aware of the larger world and other people in it. What happened in that brief period wasn’t very dramatic but certainly had ramifications for my future life.
I’m also happy to advise that my innocence remained intact in spite of Catholic school, television, an intense friendship, and the overture of a pubescent neighbor girl. Read all about it.
Recently I found the obituary of my best friend from high school, Dennis (January 30, 1942 – October 10, 2023), dated almost a year ago. All through this past year, I’d had a sneaky feeling he’d probably passed on. We hadn’t been in contact for a couple years—ever since I wrote that I’d always wished he were my brother. Denny replied that we’d always be brothers—in Christ. While not exactly the terminology I had in mind, I took it in the intimate spirit intended.
In those years since 1960 after we parted, Dennis now lives on only in the memories of his wife, children, and grandchildren as the Navy guy, new husband and family man, long-time worker in the paper mill in Ashdown, retiree with work-related Parkinson’s, and a happy fisherman out in the backwoods of Arkansas. May they long remember him, but I know how quickly fond family memories can fade away to ancient photographs or vague anecdotes, even in one year.
Over those years, I visited Denny a few times, first in the mid-70’s when we were both still young. At his new house I briefly saw his teenaged son (his spitting image), and at the paper mill we had a few fond moments together. Our next meeting was around our 50th class reunion (2010) when we rode on a parade float together. Some years later, I met him and his wife Esther at a fishing camp at White Cliffs, and on yet another drive-by I stopped in at their new house. I was sorely distressed by my friend’s Parkinson’s affliction, but he seemed to be medicating it well.
We had only two early years together when my Denny was the handsome high school boy, Halloween King, volley-ball player, joker, and unspeakably sexy tease. Now that teenaged Halloween King is mine and mine alone, like the heroic ephebe on a Grecian urn, eternally young and incorruptible. With Denny’s passing one year ago, my old novella BAT IN A WHIRLWIND has now become a veritable monument to my beloved best buddy, our newly true love story. With no one to refute my blatant fictions, the adolescent passions of our avatars Danny and Ben are for all intents and purposes factual history.
Here follow some preview scenes. For our whole love story and poignant memories of Denny, please read the book.
1. THE CHASE
Along the parking area in front of the café there was this huge chain strung up between big cement posts. They were sitting on the great links down by the rosebush. I sat next to Danny so my leg pushed up against his. He threw his arm over my shoulder and squeezed my neck. It felt so good I thought I was going to faint, but then I realized it was the smelly cigar.
They were talking about Terry’s hot ’57 Chevy parked right there in front of us, all shiny and black. Naturally I myself knew nothing about cars beyond what I could read on the hood. But I felt perfectly content listening to my good buddy chatter about whatever, as long as he kept his arm around my neck.
When Terry went back inside for a snack, Danny punched me on the arm, and I chased him across the road to our Desoto, down the way to the Phillips 66 station and around the pumps, back across the highway, up past the café, and around some cars. He finally let me catch him around the corner where Melvin, the night cook, parked his new red Plymouth. We collapsed on its shiny hood, breathless from running and laughing.
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2. AT SCHOOL
At school I waited out front for Danny. He came ambling up the walk under the oak trees whistling “Red River Valley.” He was so hot-looking it should be illegal. Danny’s flattop was a shade darker than mine with just a hint of a ducktail in back. That point of hair on his nape didn’t look sissy at all. Actually, it was pretty darned sexy.
He had to go to the office and get him a newspaper article for Civics class. I already had mine, a short thing about Congress passing some bill. Afterwards, we hung out by the lockers, and he leaned lazily up against one. Something made me poke his stomach. Wiggling his hips, he asked, “Want something?” Then he blushed like crazy, his cheeks the color of cherries…
Going to our regular assembly seats, now on the very first row being seniors, he brushed my face with his red sweater in passing, and I caught a brief flower-like fragrance. Waiting for the assembly to start, Danny looked over at Betty Lou with intense carnal interest. I whispered, “There’s a little muscle in your cheek that’s quivering.”
He didn’t take his eyes off of her and said, “That ain’t the only one. Boy, I could make do with just half of her.”
Deadpan, I asked, “Right or left?” Danny cracked up.
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3. THE INDIAN WELL
Noticing the shallow Indian well full of leaves, Danny said it sure looked like a great place for a nap. So, I pushed him in, and he pulled me tumbling after. Wrestling around, I took to tickling Danny in the ribs, and he struggled, laughing and begging me to quit. Tears glistened in his brown eyes. When I stopped, he instantly jumped me and pinned me flat on my back, knees on my elbows so I couldn’t tickle anymore.
Danny leaned over me, grinning mischievously, and stroked my furry cheek. “I love your fuzz,” he said, laughed, and asked, “Wanna know what I wished?” I nodded. “Here, I’ll show you,” he said with a sly smile and popped open the buttons on his fly. His pecker stood right up in the air, maybe six inches from my nose, a lot bigger than mine. He moaned and said, “My balls are about to explode!”
All my blessed bliss of the day was blown away by his cock sticking out of his pants like a dark-headed snake. How could temptation ambush me so soon after being made pure again? Why did the devil use my beloved friend to lure me into sin? When Danny started touching himself impurely, I struggled out from under him, protesting that what he was doing was a sin.
“Maybe for you, Benny babe,” he said, rolling over in the leaves, and kept on moving his hand. “But I think it’s like a little bit of heaven.”
“Well, I’m not going to watch,” I protested in a fit of virtue and walked over to stare at the trunk of the white oak. Hearing Danny’s sweet groans, I had to struggle not to get hard myself. Listening to a bird singing somewhere didn’t help. Then a deep grunt.
When Danny climbed out of the leaf-well, he was handsomer than ever, his eyes brown and shining. How could I love him so much in spite of his sinful ways? I rumpled his soft hair to show I loved him anyway.
My latest memoir, KID STUFF, progresses slowly in between drawing for my TONALAMATL project, writing on other stuff, and seasonal gardening. (In that arena, besides the swaths of golden aspens on the mountains, we’re now well into autumn colors down here in town.)
Rocky Mountain Asters (foreground) Maximilian Sunflowers (background)
For the memoir, I’m now posting the second mini chapter called BIG BRO which covers my few relatively idyllic years between five and eight. They were years of minor traumas, dramas, and challenges, the most serious but least impactful being a concerted but unsuccessful effort by the Catholic church to indoctrinate my heathen little head.
Little Dick at Eight
The most traumatic but least important experience of that period was in the first grade when, like a naughty kitten, I lost my mitten and feared I’d have no pie. In fact, I got more pie than I needed and by eight had gotten downright plump. The most painful but least meaningful drama was my first time away from the family at Cub Scout camp when I was too shy to use the latrine.
The funniest adventure in those few years of empty-headed childhood was a snowy sleighride that went terribly wrong. On the other hand, the most serious and meaningful episode in those few years was being rescued from drowning by my heroic father. That was essentially our closest relationship moment in all the too few years of his life.
Check out BIG BRO for a few minutes of old snapshots and fond, if vague, memories of a childhood well before the age of reason, if such a theoretical age indeed exists.
The nineteenth trecena (13-day “week”) of the Aztec Tonalpohualli (ceremonial count of days) is called Eagle for its first numbered day, which is the 15th day of the veintena (20-day “month”). In Nahuatl, Eagle is Cuauhtli. It was known as Men(Eagle, Sage or Wise One) in Yucatec Maya and Tz’ikin (Eagle) in Quiché Maya.
Ever since the Maya, the day Eagle has signified bravery, lofty ideals, acuity of vision and mind. The Eagle was seen as an avatar of the sun and emblematic of high authority. The elite order of Eagle Knights was prominent in Aztec society. The day-sign was anatomically connected to various parts of the body, including the right ear and right foot. The patron of the day Eagle is Xipe Totec, the god of Spring and renewal, who was seen as patron of the Dog Trecena.
PATRON DEITY RULING THE EAGLE TRECENA
Xochiquetzal (Flower Feather) is the ever-young goddess of love, beauty, sexuality, and fertility. She protects young mothers in pregnancy and childbirth and is patron of weaving, embroidery, artisans, artists, and prostitutes. Her day-name is Ce Mazatl (One Deer). Reflecting her intense sexuality, among her several reputed husbands/lovers were her twin brother Xochipilli, Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca, Centeotl, and Xiuhtecuhtli. However, despite her patronage of fertility, I’ve not seen any reports of progeny. Very recently, I was advised that Tezcatlipoca is a possibly secondary/minor patron of the trecena in one of his many nagual disguises.
AUGURIES OF THE EAGLE TRECENA
By Marguerite Paquin, author of “Manual for the Soul: A Guide to the Energies of Life: How Sacred Mesoamerican Calendrics Reveal Patterns of Destiny” https://whitepuppress.ca/manual-for-the-soul/
Theme: Supremacy/War, Lofty Vision. The juxtaposition of the “supremacy” oriented energies of the Eagle with a patron energy of a goddess aligned with artistry and creativity, brings to mind the idea that women who died in childbirth were seen as “warriors” and, like warriors who died in battle, were esteemed for their bravery. The “creativity” component may refer to the valor and creativity involved in bringing forth new life. This combination of energies places emphasis on the courage needed to overcome obstacles and move life forward despite enormous challenges. Power, military strength, and transformative action are often highlighted during this period.
Further to how these energies connect with world events, see the Maya Count of Days Horoscope blog at whitepuppress.ca/horoscope/ Look for the Men (Eagle) trecena.
THE 13 NUMBERED DAYS IN THE EAGLE TRECENA
The Aztec Tonalpohualli, like the ancestral Maya calendar, is counted through the sequence of 20 named days of the agricultural “month” (veintena), of which there are 18 in the solar year. Starting with 1 Eagle, it continues with: 2 Vulture, 3 Earthquake, 4 Flint, 5 Rain, 6 Flower, 7 Crocodile, 8 Wind, 9 House, 10 Lizard, 11 Snake, 12 Death, and 13 Deer.
There are a few special days in the Eagle trecena: One Eagle (in Nahuatl Ce Cuauhtli) – Day-name of one of the Cihuateteo, spirits of women who died in childbirth. It’s also associated with Cihuacoatl (Snake Woman), a goddess of fertility, motherhood, midwives, and sweat baths.
Three Earthquake (in Nahuatl Yeyi Ollin) and Seven Crocodile (in Nahuatl Chicome Cipactli) – Noted in the Florentine Codex as special days for bathing newborns and celebrating births.
THE TONALAMATL (BOOK OF DAYS)
Several of the surviving so-called Aztec codices (some originating from other cultures like the Mixtec) have Tonalamatl sections laying out the trecenas of the Tonalpohualli on separate pages. In Codex Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin, the first two pages are missing; Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios are each lacking various pages (fortunately not the same ones); and in Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticanus all 20 pages are extant. (The Tonalpohualli is also presented in a spread-sheet fashion in Codex Borgia, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Cospi, but that format apparently serves other purposes.)
TONALAMATL BALTHAZAR
As described in my earlier blog The Aztec Calendar – My Obsession, some thirty years ago—on the basis of very limited ethnographic information and iconographic models —I presumed to create my own version of a Tonalamatl, publishing it in 1993 as Celebrate Native America!
When I drew Xochiquetzal so long ago, I knew only her many-plumed image from Codex Borbonicus (see below) and simplified that model, omitting her lascivious snake. I replaced the flower stalks sticking out of her mouth with one of the few iconographic conventions I knew of, the song-symbol cuciatl. However, I mistakenly turned the front stalk from under her throne into a flower when it was in fact a centipede representing the Underworld.
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TONALAMATL BORGIA (re-created by Richard Balthazar from Codex Borgia)
Aztec Calendar – Eagle Trecena -Tonalamatl Borgia
The Codex Borgia version of Xochiquetzal on the left is downright punk with her intricate facial tattoos, but she displays no specific emblems of her divine identity. In fact, her Earth Monster headdress would be more appropriate for Chalchiuhtlicue. The matrix in the lower center could suggest her patronage of weaving, but I think it’s in fact a game-board for patolli because she’s also patron of gaming. The four hemispheres may be playing pieces for the game.
At first, I was confused by the lack of emblems specific to Tezcatlipoca on the figure on the right—other than the black body and smoky curls around his eye. Then a knowledgeable friend advised that this was in fact a nagual of the otherwise invisible Tezcatlipoca, Ixtlilton (Small Black Face), also known as Tlaltetecuin (Lord of the Black Water Tlilatl). The symbolic item at top center is his scrying bowl or jar of dark water used for hydromancy, diagnosing ailments and prescribing cures. A gentle god of medicine and healing specifically in relation to children, Ixtlilton brought them peaceful sleep at night. Like Tezcatlipoca, Ixtlilton was a deity of divination, Tezcatlipoca consulting his obsidian mirror, and Ixtlilton studying reflections in dark water. He was also a god of dance and music sometimes called the brother of Five Flower (a nagual of Xochipilli)
The divinatory relationship between Xochiquetzal and Tezcatlipoca isn’t clear to me, other than in their being erstwhile consorts. I may not have my mythological wires straight, but I gather Xochiquetzal was once upon a time the wife of the Storm God Tlaloc (see the Rain trecena) who ruled in the Third Sun (Four Rain), a happy era perhaps set historically in ancient Teotihuacan. However, the nefarious Tezcatlipoca abducted her, and Tlaloc flew into an inordinate rage, destroying his idyllic world with a rain of fire (volcano). Its poor people became butterflies, dogs, or birds, some say turkeys. Afterwards, Tlaloc apparently married Chalchiuhtlicue (see the Reed trecena), who became the ruler of the Fourth Sun (Four Water). Meanwhile, the philandering Tezcatlipoca apparently moved on to an affair with Tlazolteotl (see Deer and Earthquake trecenas). Quite a family saga…
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TONALAMATL YOAL (compiled and re-created by Richard Balthazar on the basis of Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios)
Aztec Calendar – Eagle Trecena – Tonalamatl Yoal
The Yoal version of Xochiquetzal (on the left), like most deities in this tonalamatl, is loaded down with identifying motifs, including the facial tattoos. Here, she’s accompanied by an Underworld centipede under her throne, a libidinous snake looking out from between her thighs, a weirdly colored jaguar in her bustle, an eagle in her headdress, and an exorbitant display of quetzal plumes.
Xochiquetzal’s skirt is a beautiful example of her weaving prowess, and that blue thing in one of her left hands may well be a loom comb, a tool used to move weft yarns into place. That still doesn’t explain a similar (banded) object held by Chalchiuhtlicue in the Yoal Reed trecena, but it’s my best guess. In any event, this goddess is even grander than the Borbonicus image (see below) that inspired my own version.
The surreal deity on the right is not named in Codex Telleriano-Remensis, but in Codex Rios it’s labelled generically as Tezcatlipoca, its obvious nagual status indicated by a smoking mirror in the headdress. The anomalous creature in which the deity is disguised bears no relation to Borgia’s Ixtlilton or to any other known nagual of the Invisible One.
Some scholars suggest that this is a coyote—reflecting Tezcatlipoca’s talent for shape-shifting—like his walk-on appearance as a vulture in the Earthquake trecena. However, while this head might be canine, the ears are totally wrong, as are its eagle talons/claws and feline tail. Then there are those blue things stuck all over it (chips of turquoise or lapis?) which turn it into some mythical jeweled creature. Of course, such scholarly suggestions (like most scholarship) are simply authoritative guesswork, and I don’t require final answers to mysteries.
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OTHER TONALAMATLS
Tonalamatl Aubin patron panel for Eagle trecena
As a mythical jeweled creature, that in Tonalamatl Aubin sports red, gold, and blue jewels. It’s clearly no coyote, looking more like a jaguar with anatomically proper claws though with too short a tail. Note also the contrast with the true jaguar pelt it sits on. Its sketchy headdress resembles in form that of Borgia’s Ixtlilton, but nothing about it suggests Tezcatlipoca. Just a regular old jeweled critter?
On the right side, an understated Xochiquetzal at least has a fat centipede under her throne and an eagle in her headdress but is sorely lacking in quetzal plumes and imagination in her facial tattoo. Oddly, I think that thing she holds with both hands is an animal-headed digging stick, which doesn’t seem to relate to any of her themes.
The square would seem to be another patolli board, and the ballcourt design in the upper left is a new emblem, reflecting Xochiquetzal’s additional patronage (along with Xochipilli’s) of the sacred ballgame tlachtli. The decapitated individual may indicate the traditional fate of losers at tlachtli. (I’m not aware of her predilection for that style of sacrifice otherwise. However, somewhere long ago I read of a ritual sacrifice to her of a female, the victim’s flayed skin being donned by her priestess. Oh, my, the wild and crazy things goddesses do in the privacy of their temples…)
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Codex Borbonicus patron panel for Eagle trecena
The image of Xochiquetzal in Codex Borbonicus is one of the most famous in Aztec iconography, obviously a bit more subtle than my old one and not as exuberant as that in Tonalamatl Yoal. But she does have a rather sexy snake. The major item to note is that most of her feathers are red. Deities usually wear green quetzal plumes like those in the topknots here, and the quetzal apparently only has little red feathers on its breast. These big red feathers probably come from the scarlet macaw, a bird sacred to her brother/spouse Xochipilli.
Almost lost among the twenty ritual items, the de-emphasized jeweled beast is still anomalous: coyote-like ears but a jaguar tail and avian claws. Whatever it’s supposed to mean, I guess it does so minimally. The three symbolic motifs we saw in the Aubin panel, the patolli gameboard, beheaded ballgame loser, and schematic ballcourt, are grouped at the top of this panel. In the upper right corner is a reference to Xochiquetzal’s importance as a patron of sex. The couple modestly hidden behind a blanket is the standard symbol of marriage (or intercourse). Seen in the Yoal panel for the Crocodile trecena, it also appears in several other codices.
The other items of the conglom don’t bear discussion, except to note the Borbonicus fondness for scorpions which appear in many of its patron panels.
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Codex Vaticanus patron panel for Eagle trecena
Once again, Codex Vaticanus closely reflects the elements of Tonalamatl Borgia. This Xochiquetzal again has complex tattoos and an Earth Monster headdress. However, now she clearly dominates the secondary figure of Ixtlilton, that nagual of Tezcatlipoca identified by the Black Water Tlilatl above. The position of his arms akimbo (very like his posture in the Borgia panel) reminds me of the dancing figure in the Borgia Flower trecena whom I took to be his purported brother Five Flower (Macuil Xochitl). That deity, this one, and the Borgia Ixtlilton all have unusual face-paint patterns around their mouths that suggest a brotherly relationship—or at least more identity confusion among the minor-deity crowd.
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As far as patrons of the Eagle trecena go, these various naguals of Tezcatlipoca don’t seem to contribute much to the trecena’s themes of Supremacy/War and Lofty Vision. Maybe Ixtlilton and the jeweled beast really were included merely to reflect Xochiquetzal’s romantic history with Tezcatlipoca. After all, that would tie in well with her divine sexuality and beauty. Dr. Paquin also suggests that Ixtlilton/Tlaltetecuin (and the jeweled beasts) are acting as cheerleaders for Xochiquetzal, dancing to ward off harmful influences and maintain her high position of supreme strategist in oversight of the game of life-death-resurrection.
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You can view all the calendar pages I’ve completed up to this point in the Tonalamatl gallery.
Back in 2022, I wrapped up my sixth volume of memoir, GAY GEISHA, calling it quits at the half-way point in my eighty-some years. The first half of my life (1942-1982) was unusual and fascinating enough to recall, but the latter half (1982-2022) is way too boring to bother with.
Besides, all kinds of people have written reams about the plague years and the liberated lives of youths in this new century, and I know very little about either subject anyway. These past two good years of focused artwork are at last leading to completion of my Tonalamatl project and series of trecena blogs, and now I find myself slipping back into memoir mode again.
I recently picked up an old book-awarded memoir by a late gay author and read about his tormented gay life set almost in my timeframe. Suffocated by a suburban, middle-class upbringing and rigid religious environment of elite privilege, the author called his closeted youth an internal exile, imprisonment. This is of course exactly the kind of thing that commercial publishing loves because the righteous straight world thinks we gay folks deserve to agonize.
Dickie with Toy, 1943
Well, the comparison with my own young life couldn’t be sharper. I never lived in a closet—because I grew up “normally” (though saddled at first by an insane religion). When I “came out,” it was a natural evolution, like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly—without guilt or opposition—and my gay environment was truly exciting, picturesque, and historic. Such a story is simply too positive, upbeat, and way too real for commercial publication. Not nearly enough angst.
That’s why I’m slipping back into the memoir frame of mind. We need us a good memoir of growing up normally, of a childhood without precocious agonies of sexual- or gender-identity confusion, without moral or social conflict. I need to write about the mind-boggling innocence of my childhood, dig deeper into the ancient material of MS YVONNE, The Secret Life of My Mother, and mine the primitive Arkansas years of my semi-fictional BAT IN A WHIRLWIND.
Already I’ve written several pages of an illustrated first chapter of KID STUFF called The Id-Kid, planning a clutch of half a dozen or more, and as usual posting each as it’s completed. Please be patient.
Just for reference, my other memoirs are DIVINE DEBAUCH, THERE WAS A SHIP, and LORD WIND. You’ll only find anguish of a sort in THERE WAS A SHIP. They’re all celebrations of gay life and so aren’t commercially attractive. Again, far too little guilt and grief.
The eighteenth trecena (13-day “week”) of the Aztec Tonalpohualli (ceremonial count of days) is called Wind for its first numbered day, which is the 2nd day of the veintena (20-day “month”). In Nahuatl, Wind is Ehecatl. It was known as Ik’ (Wind, Breath, Spirit) in Yucatec Maya, and Iq’ (Strong Wind) in Quiché Maya. The patron of the day Wind is Quetzalcoatl (See Icon #14), also patron of the Jaguar Trecena, and the eponymous wind deity Ehecatl (See Icon #5), the Breath of Life and spirit of the Tree of Life itself, is his principal nagual (manifestation).
PATRON DEITY RULING THE WIND TRECENA
Chantico, the Lady of the House (See Icon #4), is the goddess of fire (both in the home/hearth and in the earth), representing the feminine side of life (cooking, eating, and domesticity), the waters of birth, the fire of spirit, fertility and self-sacrifice. Her consort is variously seen as Xiuhtecuhtli, Lord of Fire and patron of the Snake Trecena, or as Tepeyollotl, Heart of the Mountain, the god of volcanoes (See Icon #17) and a patron of the Deer Trecena.
AUGURIES OF THE WIND TRECENA
By Marguerite Paquin, author of “Manual for the Soul: A Guide to the Energies of Life: How Sacred Mesoamerican Calendrics Reveal Patterns of Destiny” https://whitepuppress.ca/manual-for-the-soul/
Theme: Inspiration, Communication, Necromancy. Traditionally associated with the magical arts, this trecena was used by diviners to select propitious days on which to perform rituals. As Ehecatl represents the divine wind of the spirit, this energy is associated with life, breath, inspiration, and communication, but it can also conjure up storms and bring great change. Under the influence of Chantico, goddess of fire, the Wind trecena can often breathe new life into ideas, and inspire activities aligned with heart-felt communication and the provision of comfort. Use of the magical arts during this period could also help to bring nourishment for the spirit.
Further to how these energies connect with world events, see the Maya Count of Days Horoscope blog at whitepuppress.ca/horoscope/ Look for the Ik’ trecena.
THE 13 NUMBERED DAYS IN THE WIND TRECENA
The Aztec Tonalpohualli, like the ancestral Maya calendar, is counted through the sequence of 20 named days of the agricultural “month” (veintena), of which there are 18 in the solar year. Starting with 1 Wind, it continues the trecena with: 2 House, 3 Lizard, 4 Snake, 5 Death, 6 Deer, 7 Rabbit, 8 Water, 9 Dog, 10 Monkey, 11 Grass, 12 Reed, and 13 Jaguar.
There are two special days in the Wind trecena: One Wind (in Nahuatl Ce Ehecatl) -traditional day for offerings to be made to Quetzalcoatl. The day appropriately introduces a trecena devoted to sorcery and necromancy.
Nine Dog (in Nahuatl Chicnahui Itzcuintli) – the festival day of magicians, perhaps because the patron of the number Nine was the great Quetzalcoatl himself, and Dog (Xolotl) was a divine magician. Significantly, it is also the birth-day-name of Chantico, the trecena’s patron.
THE TONALAMATL (BOOK OF DAYS)
Several of the surviving so-called Aztec codices (some originating from other cultures like the Mixtec) have Tonalamatl sections laying out the trecenas of the Tonalpohualli on separate pages. In Codex Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin, the first two pages are missing; Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios are each lacking various pages (fortunately not the same ones); and in Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticanus all 20 pages are extant. (The Tonalpohualli is also presented in a spread-sheet fashion in Codex Borgia, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Cospi, but that format apparently serves other purposes.)
TONALAMATL BALTHAZAR
As described in my earlier blog The Aztec Calendar – My Obsession, some thirty years ago—on the basis of very limited ethnographic information and iconographic models —I presumed to create my own version of a Tonalamatl, publishing it in 1993 as Celebrate Native America!
At the time, I didn’t know about Chantico’s importance as a volcano goddess, and my version of her is a quintessentially Codex Nuttall matron tending a stylized hearth-fire. I acknowledged her domestic role by including the weaving spindle—a detail far more appropriate for the goddess Tlazolteotl. The golden bird in her headdress is probably completely out of place, but her jaguar-pelt throne is perfectly appropriate for a goddess. In my Icon #4, I posed Chantico in an ornamental house (temple), which must have been aesthetically successful because that was the one icon banner stolen from the last venue of my YE GODS! show.
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TONALAMATL BORGIA (re-created by Richard Balthazar from Codex Borgia)
Aztec Calendar – Wind Trecena -Tonalamatl Borgia
The Wind Trecena page in Codex Borgia shows Chantico, sometimes called the Lady of Jewels (Lady of Wealth) as ornately adorned with what may be numerous pearls, but there is little else to identify her. Her nose ornament is a little too generic to serve that purpose, and the enigmatic item (inverted pot?) under her throne doesn’t help either.
More to the point, the three ornate symbols in the center of the panel are glyphs illustrating Chantico’s realms of power. At the top center is a burning temple, metaphorical for fire in the earth (volcano), and in the center is the fire in a hearth/container, both with orangish and gray curlicues of flame and smoke. The large conch at bottom center is probably a reverent gesture or reference to Quetzalcoatl on his special day One Wind.
Much more puzzling than the upside-down pot is the emphatic image on the right side of the panel: an inverted person seemingly falling across a mat or piece of fabric, most definitely not dead—which falling headfirst usually signified—and holding bouquets of vegetation and brightly flowering penitential thorns. Not much to go on here for what this apparently important third of the patron panel might mean. The commentary by Bruce Byland in the Diaz & Rodgers restoration of Codex Borgia doesn’t devote even one syllable to this intriguing detail.
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TONALAMATL YOAL (compiled and re-created by Richard Balthazar on the basis of Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios)
Aztec Calendar – Wind Trecena – Tonalamatl Yoal
As usual, in its images of deities for the Wind Trecena, Codex Telleriano-Remensis (and consequently Codex Rios) didn’t skimp on displaying emblems, symbols, and traditional regalia, though the codex-artists didn’t always agree on details. The figures recreated here are based mostly on T/R images with occasional minutiae from Rios. Both figures, of course, had to undergo radical orthopedic surgery for iconographic anatomical awkwardness.
In any case, the paired images make a striking combination. Let’s come back later to the guy on the right and scope out the divine Chantico on the left. Would you look at that headdress! A dark-feathered and be-sea-shelled crest of quetzal plumes pours forth streams of fire and water, creating an elegant atl-tlachinolli (water-fire) glyph—as discussed in the Snake Trecena—usuallya symbol of war, but here I think it represents the waters of birth and fire of spirit, attributes of the goddess. Her facial markings and matching ear- and nose-pieces are unusual, but the most disturbing (and unique) detail is her set of Tlaloc-like fangs. How does one fit that sinister motif into Chantico’s official hagiography?
Now we can check out the guy on the right, a figure most unusually in a decorative frame. The little day-sign attached to the back of his head is One Reed—which was used in the Snake Trecena to identify Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, a nagual of Quetzalcoatl. However, this seems to be Quetzalcoatl himself, probably in honor of his One Wind Festival. Strong evidence is the circular pendant, serpent accessories, black body, and tri-colored face. In fact, Quetzalcoatl was known as One Reed in central Mexico from the ancient Toltec tradition (and in more southerly areas with even older Maya traditions as Nine Wind).
The notations on the T/R and Rios pages (in Spanish and Italian) clearly name the guy Quetzalcoatl but only comment on the frame as his casa de oro. But there’s no way the little falling guy in Borgia can be construed as the great god Quetzalcoatl nor can that decorative mat compare to this deity’s golden house. Whatever Borgia meant by that strange scene may have been used by the T/R artist as an excuse to celebrate Quetzalcoatl as a star of the trecena.
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OTHER TONALAMATLS
Tonalamatl Aubin patron panel for Wind trecena
The patron panel in Tonalamatl Aubin merely complicates the situation, presenting an upright little guy with bouquets and without any emblems of Quetzalcoatl—though now in a casa de oro. That motif may bode a deeper significance than even Borgia’s fancy mat. Thinking at first that Yoal’s One Reed glyph might in fact identify Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, I wondered if maybe the casa de oro could represent the House of the Dawn. That motif also has a connection to Quetzalcoatl as the planet Venus, but I know of no connection between Chantico and dawn. The matter of the little guy remains mysterious.
The hearth fire at the top center is of course symbolic of Chantico, whose plumed headdress is similar to that worn by both figures in the Yoal panel. Her atl-tlachinolli glyph and skull-bustle are repeated here, but the conch over her head seems damaged. The big serpent under her throne must symbolize emphatic sexuality, but I can’t explain the pile of something or other pierced by penitential thorns. The central offering bowl seems rather pitiful, as do the grotesque hands and feet on both figures. Overall, this patron panel isn’t particularly inspiring.
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Codex Borbonicus patron panel for Wind trecena
On the other hand, the patron panel from Codex Borbonicus is enchantingly ornate. It presents another casa de oro on the left with a common mortal who carries a standard bouquet/weapon and incense bag but again wears the Yoal-style plumed headdress. He does nothing to clarify the mystery. On the right, Chantico sports great bunches of quetzal plumes, another dramatic atl-tlachinolli glyph, and under her throne familiar plumed tassels with seashells. Her unusual sitting posture (hovering above instead of in front of the throne) may be intended to add to her ethereal/divine presence. That nose-clamp looks painful.
The scattered conglom of ritual items raises several questions. Starting in the upper left, what’s the significance of the day-sign One Crocodile (first day of the tonalpohualli)? Or of the standard-design rock/stone. No idea… Top center may be a glyphic hearth-fire. On the lower left seems to be an incense burner, but the leafy swatches beside it are inscrutable. The mounded item just above may be a metaphor for fire in the earth (volcano) and could relate to Aubin’s pile of something or other. But most iconic is the little frilled circle in the center with a star or divine eye in the middle. A traditional symbol of magic or sorcery, it’s the only reference in these patron panels to this trecena’s theme of necromancy.
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Codex Vaticanus patron panel for Wind trecena
The patron panel from Codex Vaticanus again repeats the inventory of motifs from Borgia, including burning temple, hearth-fire, and conch. But it deepens the mystery of what the little guy represents. Here, he’s a blue figure (possibly a corpse?) in what looks like a box rather than on a mat or in a casa de oro. Still no answers… Apart from her fancy skirt, cape, and body-tattoos, Chantico is pretty plain. Her sitting with feet forward is most unusual, and the confusion of her arms detracts from any divine magnificence.
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My ancient intuition about Chantico was apparently right on making her a normal, stylish woman. Appropriately, some patron panels give her dramatic emblems I didn’t know about like plumed headdress, fire-water glyph, and power symbols of hearth-fires and volcanoes. While her Borgia portrait is glamorous, her image in Yoal is more ornamental than most calendrical deities in that tonalamatl. Her pairing with the cameo of Quetzalcoatl makes one of the more exquisite Yoal panels, but we can’t take that to mean that he’s also a patron of the trecena. This guy One Reed seems more like a Master of Ceremonies for the magicians’ fiesta week. Maybe the strange little guys in the other tonalamatls are sorcerer-performers.
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You can view all the calendar pages I’ve completed up to this point in the Tonalamatl gallery.
After wrapping up my little piece about Morning Star mythology in Pre-Columbian America, I turned back to re-creating Aztec codex pages from the calendar and my work on the Vulture trecena (13-day ‘week’), its patron being the god of the Evening Star. The detailed process of pixelating is fairly time-consuming and lends itself to much cogitation and curiosity about the deity at hand. But first some Maya stuff on the Evening Star.
Lady Evening Star of Yaxchilan
No surprise, but my internet search provided precious few hits for Maya Evening Star, the only one being for a Maya queen of Yaxchilan named Great Skull and known as Lady Evening Star. Here’s some fancy ancient royalty gossip: A princess from the formidable city-state Calakmul, she married the ruler of Yaxchilan, Itzamnaaj B’alam III (Shield Jaguar the Great), was the mother of Yaxun B’alam IV (Bird Jaguar) and ruled 742-751 CE until her son’s maturity.
Apart from being the title of a regal queen, other Maya concepts of the Evening Star, if there were any, have been lost to the fires of history. Unless they were carved in stone like this portrait of Lady Evening Star on Stela 35 from Yaxchilan. References on Venus, a hugely important theme in Maya astronomy and culture, rarely even mention the Evening Star, though the Maya well knew it was related to the Morning Star as another phase of that planet.
I have no doubt that the famous Dresden Codex probably discusses the Evening Star, but I can’t read through those boggling glyphs looking for mentions and have no idea what it was called in either the Yucatec or Quiché Maya languages. But I really wanted to find out something of the history and mythology of my Vulture trecena patron.
That’s why I went back to my program from the Getty Museum show of the Maya Codex of Mexico (the Grolier Codex), a Maya-Toltec document dating 1021-1154 CE, where in the fragmentary pages on the cycles of Venus, I’d found the Morning Star image that inspired my earlier blog. In fact, for the Evening Star phases, the Maya Codex contains three gruesome images that show a deity with a death’s-head/skull-face. The best preserved presents a deity holding up a victim/prisoner’s bleeding head, apparently having recently decapitated the poor fellow with a large flint knife in his other hand. The skull-faces no doubt mean that the Maya identified the Evening Star is an entity of the Underworld (Xibalba), which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They considered life and death a mystical continuum.
Evening Star, Codex Maya de Mexico
The Underworld connection could well belong to an original Maya notion of the Evening Star. In later traditions, it was considered the guide/companion of the sun on its nightly journey through the Underworld. The earlier Maya may well have had a similar myth for the bright star that followed the setting sun. I hesitate to speculate on the Maya meaning of the victim in this scene, but it bears witness to the long-standing tradition of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica. Natural phenomena (like the movement of the sun, the rain, etc.) always came at a price in human blood.
Though the Maya Codex shows the Morning and Evening phases of Venus as different types of figures (including a being with a mask suggestive of a storm-deity), they understood well that it was all the same planet. Maybe Chak Ek’ was actually the deity of Venus itself, making no distinction between its phases: 236 days as Morning Star, 90 days in superior conjunction (behind the Sun), 250 days as Evening Star, and 8 days in inferior conjunction (passing between Earth and Sun). That would explain finding no evidence of separate deities, but of course finding no evidence of something doesn’t prove the absence of that something.
Similarly, I’ve found nothing on what the Venus-phases meant to the culture of Teotihuacan, which certainly revered the planet as the god Quetzalcoatl. That central Mexican metropolis possibly also didn’t separately deify the Morning and Evening Stars. However, the Maya Codex indicates that by Toltec times the concepts of the two phases were diverging, at least in their visualizations. At some time in succeeding centuries, later Nahua cultures evidently completed the separation, generating the new deity Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Lord of the House of the Dawn) for the Morning Star and another called Xolotl for the Evening Star.
Oddly, they deified the dog as the Evening Star—literally the apotheosis of dog! In two of the surviving “Aztec” codices, the new god appears in strikingly similar poses vividly recalling the decapitation motif in the Maya Codex. The earlier Underworld connection of the Evening Star is suggested by the night-capes both of these Xolotls wear.
Two Xolotls with Victims, Codex Fejervary-Mayer l., Codex Vaticanus r.
Since so little is known about the Maya Evening Star, most authorities like to extrapolate the later mythology of Xolotl back into that period, but I wonder if such lore was in fact inherited. The Maya indeed revered the dog as a guide, companion, protector and bringer of light to darkness, which may have involved escorting the sun through the night. However, Xolotl’s role as psychopomp for souls through the Land of the Dead (Mictlan), eerily paralleling the Hellenic concept of Cerberus in Hades and the Egyptian god Anubis, may well be a later elaboration.
A specific Maya reference to the dog is four images on pp. 25, 26, 27 & 28 of the Dresden Codex shown in relation to rituals for celebrating new years, but I don’t know how that might fit into the ancestry of Xolotl. In any case, they underline the cultural importance of the dog.
Xolotl appears relatively often in the surviving codices, in all but one instance in the guise of a dog. In Codex Borgia the dog-god occurs three times in its typically ornamented style, one too damaged to make out any details. The figure on the left below appears in the “magical journey” sequence, and the central image is from a “heaven temple.” The Sun symbol on its back refers to escorting the Sun through the Underworld at night. Earlier in the codex, as patron of the day Earthquake, Xolotl appears uniquely as a deformed human—which is no doubt why scholars have called him the deity of monstrosities, including twins. (The twin theme obviously refers to the close relationship between the Evening and Morning Stars.)
Three Xolotls, Codex Borgia
In two other codices, Xolotl is depicted as a fairly naturalistic dog, unfortunately not naturalistic enough to discern its breed. In the Nahuatl language, “dog” is Itzcuintli, but that’s also a generic term. These images only indicate some sort of a shaggy dog, not at all like the hairless canine Xoloitzcuintli (named for the god) which has been designated the national dog of Mexico. These dogs also look nothing like the small chihuahua which was apparently raised for eating. The spiked collar on the left example I expect is an abstracted “night-sun” symbol, and the explicit anatomy of the central figure is hard to overlook.
Three Naturalistic Xolotls, Two (l.) from Codex Vaticanusand One (r.) from Codex Laud
Said to have come from the area of Veracruz, Codex Fejervary-Mayer conversely presents Xolotl as a full-fledged, anthropomorphic canine deity ensconced in an elegant temple. In addition, the codex contains several pages with this Xolotl in various aggressive postures, (including eating someone’s head!), which recall panels of Morning Star violence. In one, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli mysteriously wears a dog’s head. These Codex F-M scenes may indicate a lingering conceptual overlap between the two phases of Venus in a distant conservative area of Mexico.
Two Xolotls, Codex Fejervary-Mayer
The scene on the right surely relates to the earlier images with victim, but here blood issues from his body like from a heart sacrifice. Another conservative aspect of Codex F-M iconography is that, except for the first one holding the victim and heart, its Xolotl dog-gods all have the same head—basically that of those anthropomorphic New-Year dogs in the Dresden Codex. Here we see examples of mythological evolution in action.
In codices with tonalamatls (books of the Aztec Calendar), Xolotl is celebrated as the patron of the Vulture trecena and formally consecrated as the god-dog, often enthroned.
Three Divine Xolotls, (l – r)Codices Borbonicus, Borgia and Vaticanus
Besides their masses of divine regalia, all three wear the conch-shell pendant (‘wind-jewel’) symbolizing their connection to Quetzalcoatl/Venus, but none is breed-specific. Curiously, the Vaticanus example is swaddled in a traditional corpse-bundle, perhaps a veiled reference to the Evening Star’s Underworld connection. Now that’s a trio of indisputably alpha dogs!
In its Vulture trecena patron panel, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, an early post-Conquest text painted on European paper, takes the dog to a yet higher level of glory, presenting a fantastic, iconic, metaphorical scene of Xolotl as the brilliant Evening Star with a gleaming Sun (Tonatiuh) setting into the gaping maw of Tlaltecuhtli, Lord of the Earth.
Evening Star with Setting Sun From Codex Telleriano-Remensis (re-creation)
Personally, as an opinionated artist, I think this eye-boggling panel is an absolute epitome of Aztec iconography. You’re welcome to your own opinion. Meanwhile, I’ll note that here Xolotl looks absurdly like a Pekinese, but that makes no difference to the spectacular metaphor.
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Unlike the myths of the Morning Star, it’s surprising that with the celebrity of Xolotl in Mesoamerica, the Evening Star cult didn’t spread into North America. However, the dog’s traditional loyalty, companionship, guidance and protection was generally appreciated by tribes across the whole continent, and sometimes it was included in rituals and ceremonies. I’ve only found a few legendary references from the Ojibwe and Pawnee (usually about wife or daughter of the Evening Star) and one from the Algonquin about an Osseo, Son of the Evening Star, but there’s no connection to a dog. It seems that Xolotl’s godhead was only valid in Mexico.
But that hasn’t mattered much. All across North America, dogs domesticated humans beings and became de facto gods in their own right, ruling their mortal owners’ Morning (days) and Evening (nights) and living (for the most part) idle lives of divine luxury. Their worshipful care consumes an enormous sector of the economy, I’d bet grossly larger even than that for religious institutions—an apotheosis without even needing an Evening Star mystique or human sacrifice.
The seventeenth trecena (13-day “week”) of the Aztec Tonalpohualli (ceremonial count of days) is called Waterfor its first numbered day, which is coincidentally the 9th day of the veintena (20-day “month”). In Nahuatl, Water is Atl.It was known as Muluk (Water) in Yucatec Maya and Toj (Rain or “Thunderpain”) in Quiché Maya.
The Aztecs saw the day Water, typically shown as a container spilling water, as connected with the flow/passage through life and time as well as purification and the accumulation of resources and potentials. It’s associated anatomically with the back of the head/hair. The divine patron of the day is Xiuhtecuhtli, the Lord of Fire/Turquoise, who’s a patron of the Snake trecena.
PATRON DEITY RULING THE WATER TRECENA
Chalchiuhtotolin (see Icon #3), the Jade (or Jeweled) Turkey, is another nagual (manifestation) of Tezcatlipoca (see Lizard trecena). As the magnificent patron of his Jaguar Warriors of the Night and of military power and glory, it cleanses them of contamination, absolves them of guilt, and overcomes their fates. Appropriately it’s the patron of the day Flint, the sacrificial knife.
Though symbolic of sustenance and abundance, Chalchiuhtotolin is also associated with disease and pestilence, a creature of death and decay, regeneration and transformation. Chalchiuhtotolin is also linked to the earth’s fertility, agricultural cycles, and the natural order of life and death. Appeasing Chalchiuhtotolin was believed to ensure a smooth transition for the deceased into the afterlife and promote fertility and abundance in the earthly realm.
AUGURIES OF THE WATER TRECENA
By Marguerite Paquin, author of “Manual for the Soul: A Guide to the Energies of Life: How Sacred Mesoamerican Calendrics Reveal Patterns of Destiny” https://whitepuppress.ca/manual-for-the-soul/
Trecena theme: Generative Vitality, Purification. This life-giving time frame has a generative “firewater” aspect to its energy, representative of the original creation forces that sparked life itself. There is a strong sense of abundance associated with these forces, but these energies can also be “electrical” in the sense that they can “spark” important events, often associated with stimulation and cleansing. Like water itself, this period holds the potential to create pathways that can shape or change the world. This trecena has also been associated with omens.
Further to how these energies connect with world events, see the Maya Count of Days Horoscope blog at whitepuppress.ca/horoscope/ Look for the Muluk trecena.
THE 13 NUMBERED DAYS IN THE WATER TRECENA
The Aztec Tonalpohualli, like the ancestral Maya calendar, is counted through the sequence of 20 named days of the agricultural “month” (veintena), of which there are 18 in the solar year. Starting with 1 Water, it continues the trecena with: 2 Dog, 3 Monkey, 4 Grass, 5 Reed, 6 Jaguar, 7 Eagle, 8 Vulture, 9 Earthquake, 10 Flint, 11 Rain, 12 Flower, and 13 Crocodile.
There’s one special day in the Water trecena:
One Water (in Nahuatl Ce Atl) –the day-name of Chalchiuhtlicue, the Jade Skirt, the patron of the Reed trecena. In the Florentine Codex, it’s noted as a feast day for those involved in the water industries, but I can only speculate what those were.
THE TONALAMATL (BOOK OF DAYS)
Several of the surviving so-called Aztec codices (some originating from other cultures like the Mixtec) have Tonalamatl sections laying out the trecenas of the Tonalpohualli on separate pages. In Codex Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin, the first two pages are missing; Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios are each lacking various pages (fortunately not the same ones); and in Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticanus all 20 pages are extant. (The Tonalpohualli is also presented in a spread-sheet fashion in Codex Borgia, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Cospi, but that format apparently serves other purposes.)
TONALAMATL BALTHAZAR
As described in my earlier blog The Aztec Calendar – My Obsession, some thirty years ago—on the basis of very limited ethnographic information and iconographic models —I presumed to create my own version of a Tonalamatl, publishing it in 1993 as Celebrate Native America!
Aztec Calendar – Water trecena – Tonalamatl Balthazar
Yet again, I knew nothing about traditional images of the Jade Turkey and simply played with a Nuttall-style guy in a turkey-suit, the dominant green color reflecting the “jade.” Only many years later did I discover true details of this deity’s mythology—and the unusual type of turkey it references. The following patron panels will explain a lot of little-known turkey-trivia.
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TONALAMATL BORGIA (re-created by Richard Balthazar from Codex Borgia)
Aztec Calendar – Water trecena – Tonalamatl Borgia
Besides the “Jade Turkey,” Chalchiuhtotolin is also called the “Jeweled Turkey”—referring to Meleagris ocellata, an endangered species native to Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala and named for “eyes” on its imposing fan of tail feathers. With stunning blue-to-purple-to-green plumage, this rara avis is a distant cry from the standard “Thanksgiving” turkey (Meleagris gallopavo).
Ocellated Turkey
Surely known personally to the Maya but likely only mythically in Mexico, this rare bird as patron of the Water trecena shows its ancient heritage. The peoples of Mexico found significant sustenance and abundance in its drabber but larger cousin, the Wild Turkey, ancestor of our even bigger domestic turkey. But they “idolized” a mythical jeweled fowl that could be called the “Turquoise Turkey” (Xiuhtotolin). Coincidentally and appropriately, that could also mean “Fire Turkey.” Since the bodies of ocellata were many shades of iridescent emerald-green, simply “Jade Turkey” is its best label.
The color palettes of codex artists included very few shades of blue which differed over time and area. The Maya had a famous blue of unknown source, and the Mexicans later achieved a generous blue like in Codex Borbonicus. In Codex Borgia, most intended blues have degraded into shades of grey (as have any hues of green into brownish-golds). Codex Laud and Codex Fejervary-Mayer use a dark greenish or slate tone for blues and/or greens, with other colors fairly vivid. In Vaticanus b (predominantly cochineal red and brownish gold), they managed some subdued blues and greens almost like highlights. But a true turquoise was way out of an artist’s reach, not to mention any shade of purple.
That made it essentially impossible to depict Chalchiuhtotolin in all its iridescence. The Jade Turkey mostly appears in codices with a red head and brownish feathers, like their common farmyard gobblers. But in Codex Borgia, the mythical bird has a stylized ocellated fantail (now become blacks and greys) and brownish-gold medallions for the glowing green on its breast.
I chose to color our divine bird naturalistically—i.e., just about as supernaturally as it gets, that turquoise head and purplish tail. I wonder about that suspicious ear on the back of its head. Turkeys don’t have ears like mammals. And what’s that big tassel-thing on its breast? Well, recently I learned about turkeys’ beards. When toms (and some hens) get on in years, they can grow a long spike of feathers straight out from their breasts. That ornament and a many-eyed fan makes a formidable fowl of military majesty, a great patron for the Jaguar Warriors of the Night.
Chalchiuhtotolin seriously dominates this patron panel, especially with all that stuff the deity is evidently exhaling. The upper curlicues we now know are grey smoke and orangish fire, which makes sense for a “Fire Turkey,” a fire-breathing warrior-bird, but the curly thing caught in the disembodied claw sure doesn’t. Hanging right there in the center of the panel, it must be primally important, maybe a hieroglyphic message or utterance by the deity. Or it may be simply an abstraction for the wide range of calls, cackles, and gobbles that turkeys make.
Meanwhile, the surreal item on the right invites more interpretation. No doubt, it involves two spotted serpent tails encircling a body of water. However, the snakes’ heads lift up between knobbed sides like spouts of water (with eyes and mouths!) and top off with big flowers. The motif of a snake containing a volume of water is also seen in ancient Maya iconography—and this is after all, the Water trecena. Gathering and containing water, the essence of accumulation, provides the Jade Turkey’s abundance. So, here there be water-serpents.
Which raises a neat linguistic point: At a recent lecture, I learned that in Aztec iconography many of the images are actually hieroglyphs, pictorially and/or phonetically significant. For instance, a pot or jug with water splashing out of it can be read as a word in Nahuatl. The first syllable of their word for pot/jug/jar is co-,and their word for ‘water’ is atl. So, co-atl spells ‘snake.’ This item is in fact a decorative and emphatic hieroglyph for ‘water-serpent.’
This page for the Water trecena I consider perhaps the most glorious in the Tonalamatl Borgia, not only for its intended colors but for its surrealism. Even without the appended material and fancy water-serpent glyph, this image of Chalchiuhtotolin is inarguably the apotheosis of the turkey. (Worshipping it is a whole lot kinder—and respectful—than cooking it for dinner.)
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TONALAMATL YOAL (compiled and re-created by Richard Balthazar on the basis of Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios)
Aztec Calendar –Water trecena – Tonalamatl Yoal
This series of compiled trecena pages that I call Tonalamatl Yoal opts for a far less naturalistic image of an ocellata with the brown feathers and red head of the common gallopavo. However, there’s no clear reason for its yellow feet or the epaulets on its wings. The “jeweled” aspect of divine Chalchiuhtotolin is shown by the jade pendants on its plumage and probably the turquoise collar, but I can’t explain the apron of quetzal plumes that almost hides its jaguar-pelt “pants.” Those may indicate its nagual connection to Tezcatlipoca as does the variant smoking mirror in its headdress—a logical source of the flame and smoke seen before as the breath of the Borgia bird. Apart from the shape of the head, this heavily stylized portrayal of the deity doesn’t look much like a turkey, especially that tail, but it’s certainly an elegant fowl.
Instead of any water-serpent reference, on the right side is another figure of a human worshipper performing a ritual blood sacrifice like the guy in the Jaguar trecena. That one (with the same bound hairdo but no headdress) pierces his tongue with a pointed stick. This one jabs himself in the ear with a sharpened flowering shinbone—oddly emblematic of Quetzalcoatl, as are the two ornamental conch shells. The devout fellow also offers the deity a fancy incense bag.
Though it shares the stage here with a worshipper, Chalchiuhtotolin is clearly the sole patron of this Water trecena. As before with the tongue-piercer with Quetzalcoatl in the Jaguar trecena, this ear-stabber may merely indicate the preferred method of blood-sacrifice to the Jade Turkey. I haven’t studied the matter, but I suspect the Aztecs had prescribed rituals of phlebotomy for specific deities, including slicing other body-parts, flagellation, flaying, and eye-poking (like in the Flower trecena). It was obviously a great culture for masochists.
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OTHER TONALAMATLS
Tonalamatl Aubin patron panel for Water trecena
It’s no surprise that the turkey in the Tonalamatl Aubin patron panel can scarcely be called elegant. Looking more like a limp rubber chicken, it’s nevertheless supposed to be the divine Chalchiuhtotolin as shown by a half-hearted smoking mirror in its headdress. While the little guy pretends to stab his ear, three awkward conch shells seem to relate to familiar water-serpent symbols. Apparently, the Aubin artist(s) held Chalchiuhtotolin in only minimal awe.
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Codex Borbonicus patron panel for Water trecena
The Jade Turkey in the Codex Borbonicus patron panel, however, is rather awesome with an ornate smoking mirror and Tezcatlipoca’s beribboned circular pendant. Its anthropomorphic nature (a guy in a turkey suit) nicely justifies my own even more awesome interpretation in Tonalamatl Balthazar. In the crowd of ritual paraphernalia, I wonder about that central green pulque pot; is he drinking from it or vomiting into it? The little guy on the right of it with the colorful snake is again stabbing an ear and carrying an incense bag and a conch shell. The co-atl glyph in the lower right corner must refer to both the Water trecena and water-serpent, and fire and smoke issue from a burning temple. The cluster of symbols (including a familiar scorpion) might be elements of some hieroglyphic sentence.
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Codex Vaticanus patron panel for Water trecena
In Codex Vaticanus, the Jade Turkey distinctly reflects the Borgia image, some blue in the fantail with stylized “eyes, a geometrically abstracted wing, and a small beard on its breast. One gets the feeling that the artist probably intended to paint the white spaces in ocellata colors but didn’t get around to it. (I’m tempted to finish the job but have other fish to fry right now.)
The cluster of motifs above its head also reflects the Borgia image: plumes of smoke and fire and stylized water-serpent heads (without faces) capped with flowers. In this instance, the red “walls” of the waterspouts are evidently penitential thorns, explaining the knobbed structures in Borgia. Most interesting is the curly exhalation with stars attached grasped again in a disembodied claw; it suggests darkness or night, possibly explaining the enigmatic brown Borgia detail. The deity was sometimes called the “Precious Night Turkey”—maybe since Tezcatlipoca was the god of the night or for its patronage of the Jaguar Warriors of the Night.
This Vaticanus Chalchiuhtotolin is exceptional, both in stylized detail and in being the sole image in the patron panel. Displaying no specific emblem of Tezcatlipoca, this Jade Turkey seems (like the Borgia bird) to proclaim its independent divinity.
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I’m impressed by the virtuosity of the Vaticanus artist(s) in stylizing certain animals like the dog (discussed in the previous Vulture trecena) and this Jade Turkey. Elsewhere in the codex they have twice drawn turkeys in the context of their patronage of the day Flint, on pp. 29 and 93:
Two Turkeys, Codex Vaticanus
From different sections of the codex but in similar poses (and both sporting impressive beards), these two gobblers may well have been drawn by different artists in slightly different personal styles. The one on the left is clearly a common variety tom, but apart from the necessarily red head, the one on the right looks to be an authentic ocellata with the eyes on its fantail and more intricate plumage. Perhaps the magnificent trecena patron image was created by yet a third artist, someone more fluent in religious symbolism.
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You can view all the calendar pages I’ve completed up to this point in the Tonalamatl gallery.
The sixteenth trecena (13-day “week”) of the Aztec Tonalpohualli (ceremonial count of days) is called Vulturefor its first numbered day, which is coincidentally the 16th day of the veintena (20-day “month”). In Nahuatl, Vulture is Cozcacuauhtli.However, for the Maya, the day apparently had only a peripheral association with the vulture and was known as Kib’ (Wax or Candle) in Yucatec and Ajmac (Owl or “sinner”) in Quiché with different significance. Per Dr. Paquin’s fine book (cited below), the Maya saw Kib’ as connected with the four Bacabs (directions or sky-bearers) and associated it with incense, the “soul force” of the universe, and notably bees.
On the other hand, the Aztec saw the day Vulture connected with the spiritual realm, restoring order and balance, and prosperity. Folks born on a Vulture day would be vigorous, prudent, wise, and good teachers and advisors. Those born on One Vulture would be happy, wealthy, admired, and lucky in business. Anatomically, the day was connected with the right ear.
PATRON DEITY RULING THE VULTURE TRECENA
The patron of the trecena is Xolotl, the Evening Star, god of twins, often called the “Evil Twin” of Quetzalcoatl (by the goddess Chimalma, while other lore has them borne by Ometeotl, the Creative Pair). Still other lore says Xolotl and Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Morning Star) are the real twins, though the Morning Star is the more dangerous/evil, and what’s more they’re both naguals of Quetzalcoatl (Venus). Also, reflecting the Maya Hero Twins, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are supposedly the famous twins, which further obfuscates divine family trees.
Usually, twins were seen as monstrosities, one of the two often killed at birth, and so Xolotl is called the deity of monstrosities. Adding to his “evil” reputation, he’s considered the god of malice and treachery, representing the bestial side of people, the opposite of intellect.
Recalling the European three-headed dog Cerberus in Hades and the jackal/dog Anubis in ancient Egypt’s Duat, Xolotl is most often depicted as a dog—who serves as psychopomp of souls in Mictlan. In the same way, when the Cihuateteo have brought the sun to its setting, the dog-god escorts Tonatiuh on his nightly journey through the Underworld. The setting sun-god is called Tlalchi-Tonatiuh, Sun close to (or under) the Earth, and is occasionally thought of as an ephemeral “patron” of the Vulture trecena.
AUGURIES OF THE VULTURE TRECENA
By Marguerite Paquin, author of “Manual for the Soul: A Guide to the Energies of Life: How Sacred Mesoamerican Calendrics Reveal Patterns of Destiny” https://whitepuppress.ca/manual-for-the-soul/
Trecena theme: Mischief, Duality, Transformation. With the patron deities of this trecena both representing of the close proximity of the sun to the earth, it is not unusual to see some tendency towards “fire in the earth” during this period. These energies seem to underscore the dualistic nature of this trecena, metaphorically suggestive of the sun’s journey through the underworld, and its struggle towards rebirth. This can precipitate havoc, often of an intense or fiery nature, often involving some form of duality. However, the ultimate purpose is often transmutation, a push towards the birth of something new, as suggested by the initiating energy of Kib’, the Vulture energy that is ultimately oriented towards a restoration of order.
Further to how these energies connect with world events, see the Maya Count of Days Horoscope blog at whitepuppress.ca/horoscope/ Look for the Kib’ trecena.
THE 13 NUMBERED DAYS IN THE VULTURE TRECENA
The Aztec Tonalpohualli, like the ancestral Maya calendar, is counted through the sequence of 20 named days of the agricultural “month” (veintena), of which there are 18 in the solar year. Starting with the 16th day of the veintena, 1 Vulture, it continues: 2 Earthquake, 3 Flint, 4 Rain, 5 Flower, 6 Crocodile, 7 Wind, 8 House, 9 Lizard, 10 Snake, 11 Death, 12 Deer, and 13 Rabbit.
There are two special days in the Vulture trecena:
Four Rain (in Nahuatl Nahui Quiahuitl) – Featured on the Stone of the Suns, this is the day-name of the idyllic Third Sun/Era ruled by the Storm God Tlaloc. However, when Tezcatlipoca abducted his wife Xochiquetzal, the angry deity destroyed the world in a rain of fire (probably a volcano). Its people became butterflies, dogs, or birds—some say turkeys.
Five Flower (in Nahuatl Macuil Xochitl) is patron of games (particularly patolli) and gambling, music and singing, who brings and cures hemorrhoids and venereal diseases. He’s one of the five Ahuiateteo (Gods of pleasure and excess thereof). So far we’ve seen Five Lizard, Five Vulture, and Five Rabbit, and we’ll meet Five Grass in the last trecena, Rabbit. They are sometimes also called the Macuiltonaleque (Lords of Number 5) who escort the sun (Tonatiuh) across the day-sky and deliver him to the five Cihuateteo to prepare him for sunset, whereupon Xolotl takes him through the Underworld night.
THE TONALAMATL (BOOK OF DAYS)
Several of the surviving so-called Aztec codices (some originating from other cultures like the Mixtec) have Tonalamatl sections laying out the trecenas of the Tonalpohualli on separate pages. In Codex Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin, the first two pages are missing; Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios are each lacking various pages (fortunately not the same ones); and in Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticanus all 20 pages are extant. (The Tonalpohualli is also presented in a spread-sheet fashion in Codex Borgia, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Cospi, but that format apparently serves other purposes.)
TONALAMATL BALTHAZAR
As described in my earlier blog The Aztec Calendar – My Obsession, some thirty years ago—on the basis of very limited ethnographic information and iconographic models —I presumed to create my own version of a Tonalamatl, publishing it in 1993 as Celebrate Native America!
In those dark ages of the early 90s, my information on most Aztec deities was severely limited. I’d read about Xolotl being the Evening Star and god of monstrosities but had no clue about his canine or solar characteristics. Reacting solely to a comment about his “reversed hands and feet” (but unaware that iconographically a great many divine hands and feet got reversed), I once again gathered regalia and motifs from Codex Nuttall, without realizing its appropriateness made up a wicked kind of Tlaloc mask, and to ice the cake, gave my Xolotl a hunched back. Though terribly inaccurate in detail, the result was sufficiently monstrous for its purpose. In fact, you’ll see shortly that it’s rather nicer than a disturbing authentic image of Xolotl Deformed.
The Vulture trecena panel in Codex Borgia is a great piece of positive PR for Xolotl showing an almost cuddly puppy-dog (major fangs and jaguar claws notwithstanding). It avoids implying any sinister aspect, except perhaps the bloody teardrop. Meanwhile, his nagual-connection to Quetzalcoatl is stressed by that god’s emblematic conch-shell pendant (wind-jewel).
Xolotl is obviously the sole patron in this panel, the other items being simply ritual details. The Earthquake day-sign by his foot indicates his patronage of that day, and the four dots specify the day-name of the current Fifth Sun. The deer-leg in the bowl above is a frequent offering to deities, but I can’t even guess what the bag of plumes might mean. The chopped-up snake we now know as a common symbol of sacrifice. Overall, the panel makes a pretty poster.
However, Codex Borgia doesn’t always issue pretty propaganda for Xolotl. Other pages may well have been drawn by different artists—like the panel depicting Xolotl as patron of the day Earthquake. Rather than as a dog, it shows him as a deformed monstrosity:
Xolotl Deformed, Codex Borgia
Here the bloody teardrop has become a drooping eyeball which a dubious legend ascribes to his “crying his eyes out” when at the creation of the Fifth Sun, Ehecatl supposedly massacred various gods. I frankly can’t accept that wild story, nor the claim that Xolotl was also murdered by the Wind God and turned into an axolotl (a “water-dog” salamander). After all, who would now lead Tonatiuh through the Underworld at night (or souls through Mictlan)?
There’s a lot of confused lore about Xolotl, often cited by Spanish priests/ethnographers for nefarious reasons, including a claim that he helped Quetzalcoatl bring the bones of people from the Fourth Sun up from Mictlan to create the people of the Fifth Sun. In much more likely fact, it’s actually Ehecatl who made that arrangement with Mictlancihuatl, the Lady of Mictlan. As well, being the Breath of Life, Ehecatl is an extremely unlikely mass murderer. Conversely, Spanish writers tried to whitewash Quetzalcoatl as being opposed to human sacrifice—in order to use him in their catechism as a Christ-figure.
By the way, the drooping eyeball might symbolize an Underworld connection. It’s emblematic of the Cihuateteo and shown in Borgia Plate 42 on several figures being “generated” by a death-deity. The hand across Xolotl’s lower face is essentially an emblem of the Ahuiateteo, and these two details may intend his connection with those other escorts of Tonatiuh.
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TONALAMATL YOAL (compiled and re-created by Richard Balthazar on the basis of Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Rios)
Aztec Calendar –Vulture trecena – Tonalamatl Yoal
Talk about pretty posters! I think this Tonalamatl Yoal patron panel takes the cake, so to speak. In Yoal’s colorful, fancy style, a super-ornate Xolotl (nothing at all sinister here) is paired with an equally ornate Tlalchi-Tonatiuh as the sun sinking into the gaping maw of Tlaltecuhtli, Lord of the Earth. It’s a stunning image of the Evening Star at the ephemeral moment of sunset, epitomizing the myth of Xolotl as the sun’s companion through the night.
In this regard, let me opine that the artist(s) of Tonalamatl Yoal had splendid artistic concepts for their trecena patron pairs—which were unfortunately isolated on separate pages—but frankly they lacked the technical expertise to fully achieve those concepts. That’s why I felt justified in “re-creating” their images—to make them more of what the original artist(s) must have had in mind. Their original sketchy, careless images simply couldn’t convey the art of their vision.
I hesitate to comment more on this panel but must. You will note that in Yoal’s fashion, the figure of Xolotl is heavily loaded with divine regalia, naturally including several items associated with Quetzalcoatl. Curious is the inclusion in his headdress of a bunch of unspun cotton and a spindle of spun thread, generally emblems of the goddess Tlazolteotl. But even more curious is the fact that Xolotl’s canine head looks very like a Pekinese, another cuddly puppy.
This gorgeous image of Tlalchi-Tonatiuh wears a Tlaloc-like mask with a goggle-eye but remarkably has no traditional fangs. Though Codex Rios annotated this figure (in Italian) as “Tlachitonalie,” I didn’t know what that meant, and several years ago I took this to be the God of Rain Quiahuitl to use for my Icon #15. Now I understand that it’s in fact the setting sun, and the rain-mask is probably connected with the sun’s watery route through Mictlan (where nine rivers must be crossed). Live and learn. However, I’ve yet to learn what that strange item is protruding from his mouth with all the shell ornaments. No clue…
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OTHER TONALAMATLS
Tonalamatl Aubin patron panel for Vulture trecena
Forget cuddly puppies in the Tonalamatl Aubin panel. Here Xolotl is so clumsily (one might say monstrously) drawn that he scarcely even resembles a dog. At least the three crosses on his regalia, the wind-jewel pendant, and the bow in his headdress connect him to Quetzalcoatl. Meanwhile, the little Tlalchi-Tonatiuh on the left with a full Tlaloc face wears a “night-sun” symbol and sinks into the merely schematic mouth of Tlaltecuhtli. The unusual border of flowing water may well be one of the rivers of Mictlan.
So far, so un-impressive. However, I’m struck by the free-floating items. The little bundle of sticks with a carrying strap is rather innocuous and uninteresting, but the chili pepper is quite emphatic. This is the first time I’ve seen one depicted in the codices, and other culinary ingredients are usually shown all together in a bowl or pot. This chili probably has some ritual significance. Maybe the inherent penance of eating something so hot?
This panel is perhaps the most disappointing in the whole troubling Aubin series. But that’s just me with my modern refined aesthetic. This Tonalamatl was painted in the state of Tlaxcala, and maybe the Tlaxcalans back then found it hugely beautiful. Eye of the beholder and all that…
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Codex Borbonicus patron panel for Vulture trecena
The sunset theme is repeated in Codex Borbonicus, also with a Mictlan-river border, which like in Aubin is unique in its series of trecena patron panels. This Tlalchi-Tonatiuh with a bestial head and unknown something protruding from its mouth resembles Tlaloc or Quiahuitl only in the goggle eye. An exquisite “night-sun” symbol replaces its body as it sinks into the maw of an ornate Tlaltecuhtli. Paired with an ornamented Xolotl as a cute dog (Chihuahua?), this panel is a great metaphorical sunset with Evening Star, but I feel the Yoal panel outshines it vastly.
The conglom of ritual items is familiar: a deer-leg offering (as in Borgia and Aubin) and a wrapped bundle of sticks (as in Aubin). Occurring twice now, the latter must surely mean something divinatory. I’m amused by the impertinent snake in the incense bag—and struck by another penitential chili pepper! This intricate panel is perhaps the clearest example of iconographic connections between Tonalamatl Aubin and Codex Borbonicus.
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Codex Vaticanus patron panel for Vulture trecena
As often noted before, iconographic connections between Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticanus are obvious in the Vulture trecena panel, portraying basically the same motifs in their individual styles. This Vaticanus Xolotl isn’t quite as cuddly as the Borgia version, but it’s elegantly adorned (with another emblematic wind-jewel). Its body being wrapped in a corpse bundle might lead one to think the Vaticanus artist simply got hooked on this simplistic device (after four other panels with the motif), but I believe it was used here with reason. Like in Borgia, there’s no reference to Tlalchi-Tonatiuh, and the corpse bundle establishes Xolotl’s important connection to the Underworld. I’ve taken the liberty of seriously restoring and rectifying this panel because it’s such a striking image of a mythical dog—worthy of a tattoo.
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I’m still staggered by the jewel-like Yoal sunset scene with Xolotl as the Evening Star, but after this review of the Vulture trecena patron panels, I can’t help but conclude that the dog-god has been mythologically maligned. I’ve seen nothing to indicate malice, treachery, or even mischief. Though he might represent the animal and anti-intellectual aspects of nature, I expect that his monstrous reputation rests in that one Borgia image as patron of the day Earthquake. In the parallel day-panel in Vaticanus, he’s an almost naturalistic, enthusiastic hound:
Xolotl, Codex Vaticanus
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You can view all the calendar pages I’ve completed up to this point in the Tonalamatl gallery.
Significantly, in the Aztec calendar March 6, 2024, was the day Ome Acatl (Two Reed) and my 115th birthday in that ceremonial cycle of 260-day years. In our western calendar, I’ve recently celebrated my 81st birthday, wrapping up nine cycles of nine Gregorian years and starting in on my tenth cycle. The nine include a first inchoate period of childhood and eight discrete personas. For lack of a better description, I’m calling this new ninth persona the venerable iconographer, researcher, and/or historical theorist. We’ll just have to wait and see how that pans out.
Here’s an illustrated summary of my nine cycles for easy reference.
Cowboy at 3 or 4
Inchoate Childhood in almost rural Indiana (9 years)—Little can be said about Dickie except that he was the bright but spoiled son of Yvonne and Ray. You can read about him between the lines of my memoir-biography “Ms. Yvonne, the Secret Life of My Mother.”
Class Picture at 15
Cute, clueless kid in the backwoods of Arkansas (9 years)—At 15 with a stylish flattop hairdo, Richard was an outstanding student, accomplished loner, and an avid rock’n’roll dancer, usually solo. He had the misfortune of being raised Catholic and being futilely in love with Annette Funicello. You can read about my adolescent traumas in my semi-fictional novel “Bat in a Whirlwind.”
At 21 in the House of the Rising Sun
Wild faerie slut in New Orleans’ French Quarter (5 years)—Shown here in 1963 in his apartment at 387 Audubon Street, Rick had just turned 21, was majoring in Russian at Tulane University, spent nights dancing in Latin and Greek sailor bars, and had urges to art and literature. In this photo he’s stunned by frenzied sex with a football-player named Tom. Such sordid adventures are described in my second semi-fictional novel “Divine Debauch.”
Early 1968 with Aimee
Reluctant father and Slavic scholar in northern universities (6 years)—Richie is pictured here in early 1968 at 25 with younger daughter Aimée in apartment on East Kingsley in Ann Arbor MI. On my marriage to Barbara and birth of older daughter Jacqueline, read my first real memoir “There Was a Ship.”
Single again in 1970 in Milwaukee
Hippie poet, footloose and feckless (2 years)—Photographed in December 1970 at 28 in his Bellevue apartment in Milwaukee by his mother on a visit, Richie was again stunned, first by the welcome shock of being divorced and second, by a passionate affair with a ballet dancer named Kenny. These two years of that and other love affairs are detailed in my second memoir “Lord Wind.”
In 1978 at Logan Circle
Courtesan in a Victorian mansion at Logan Circle in Washington DC (9 years)—Shown in 1978 at 36 in publicity photo for performance of his translation of Tchaikovsky’s opera “Joan of Arc” by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Richard was now a professional arts administrator with OPERA America. My libidinous lifestyle in the 70s, DC’s golden age of gay liberation, is celebrated in my third memoir “Gay Geisha.”
At Gay Freedom Parade in Denver
Mature gay gentleman working in various glamorous cities (16 years)—Taken in 1982 when Richard was 40 at the Denver Gay Freedom Parade in a Denver Post front-page picture—with his partner Ernesto. He’d been working for the Central City Opera House and later would work in other arts organizations. Recent exposure to ancient American earthworks eventually led to my first nonfiction book in 1992, “Remember Native America!” Discovery of the Aztec Calendar in the late 80s led to my second in 1993: “Celebrate Native America!”
In 2006 with Baby Jade Tree
Grandfatherly gay character, the Used Plant Man of Santa Fe (16 years)—Taken in 2006 at 64 for an article in The New Mexican on Babylon Gardens, Richard had now become a grandfather four times over. I’d also written another nonfiction book, “Getting Get,” was still an avid disco dancer, gave shows of my sculpture (found-object assemblage), and was working on the above novels and memoirs.
Widely unknown elder writer and artist (10 years)—Pictured here in 2020 at the age of 78 in New Orleans for a new production of “Joan of Arc” (by the New Orleans Opera), Richard was retired from business and now spent his time in (Aztec) drawing and finishing the above novels and memoirs. In the later 20-teens, my show YE GODS! (Icons of Aztec Deities) enjoyed seven venues across NM before being closed down by the pandemic. It also hampered my ecstatic dance activities, but the solitude facilitated my blogging and artwork on Aztec themes.
Richard Balthazar 
