The Aztec and the New Fire Ceremony

Codex Laud, folio VIII at FAMSI

Time is spiralled, time is spun; time weaves tendrils through the days.

Tonight we mourn the dying sun; tonight my heart will feed the flames.

Fragments of Berossus, Alcor
 

In the pre-Columbian era, before the Spanish conquest, a variety of calendrical systems were in simultaneous use by the cultures of Mesoamerica, including both the Maya and the Aztec.

For the Aztec, two systems, the 260-day cycle (tonalpohualli) and the 365-day cycle (xiuhpohualli), were particularly important. The 260-day cycle comprised thirteen repetitions of twenty day names, and the 365-day period consisted of eighteen such "veintenas" (the Spanish name; the original Nahuatl is no longer known) plus five nemontemi, or nameless days.

Because of the disparate lengths of the two cycles, the combination of tonalpohualli and xiuhpohualli dates formed an even longer cycle of approximately 52 solar years (365.25 days). After 18,980 days (the smallest number divisible by both 260 and 365; 18,980 = 73 x 260 and 52 x 365) the calendar combinations would then repeat* if the world did not end first — which could only be prevented by human sacrifice.

The Last New Fire Ceremony

A complete calendar round of 52 years, and the associated New Fire ceremony, was known as xiuhmolpilli — The Binding of the Years (two such bundles comprised an Aztec century or an "old one"**). The last New Fire ceremony took place in 1507, in the reign of Motecuhzuma II (also known as Montezuma), in the veintena of Panquetzaliztli ("Raising the Banners").

That was the last time human sacrifice was made, at the temple of Huixachtlān on the top of Huixachtécatl (The Hill of the Star; Spanish — Cerro de la Estrella), to keep the sun in motion lest the world end in the fall of the female star-demons, the Tzitzimimeh.

According to Bernardino de Sahagún, the Franciscan missionary responsible for compiling the the Florentine Codex¹ —

...they considered it a matter of belief that the world would come to an end at the conclusion of one of these bundles of years. They had a prophecy or oracle that at that time the movement of the heavens would cease, and they took as a sign [of this] the movement of the Pleiades. On the night of this feast, which they called Toximmolpilia [the Binding of the Years***] it so befell that the Pleiades were at the zenith at midnight with respect to the horizon in Mexico. On this night they made new fire, and before they made it, they extinguished all the fires in all the provinces, towns and houses in all of this New Spain. And they went in a solemn procession. All of the priests and servants of the temple departed from here, the Temple of Mexico, during the first quarter of the night, and went to the summit of that mountain near Itztpalapan which they call Uixachtecatl. They reached the summit at midnight, or almost, where stood a great pyramid built for that ceremony. Having reached there, they looked at the Pleiades to see if they were at the zenith, and if they were not, they waited until they were. And when they saw that now they passed the zenith, they knew the movement of the heavens had not ceased, and that the end of the world was not then. [Vol. 4, p143]

And when they drew the new fire, they drew it there at Uixachtlan, at midnight, when the night divided in half, They drew it upon the breast of a captive, and it was a well-born one on whose breast [the priest] bored the fire drill. And when a little [fire] fell, when it took flame, then speedily [the priest] slashed open the breast of the captive, seized his heart, and quickly cast it there into the fire. [Vol. 7, p25]

Then [the priests] slashed open [the captive’s] breast. In his breast [cavity] the new fire was drawn. They opened the breast of the captive with a flint knife called ixcuauac. [Vol. 7, p28]

Kay Read, in her book Time and sacrifice in the Aztec cosmos² says of this last New Fire ceremony —

The offering in this particular event was a “well bred man” named Xiuhtlamin, a war captive from the town of Huexotzinco in the Valley of Tlaxcala (a valley to the east of the Valley of Mexico). He may have been 52 years old himself since children born during the year of this 52 year rite were given names that included the word xiuitl (“year”); to have a name with xiuitl in it was a prerequisite for the honored role as sacrificial offering. [p125]

Once it [the new fire] was sparked, four priests held Xiuhtlamin down while another removed his heart with an obsidian knife called ixcuauac or “he who has an eating face.” This knife was so sharp, it is said, that if simply dropped, it would have sliced through his chest as though it were a pomegranate. Such ceremonial knives often bore a face with an open toothy mouth. Xiuhtlamin’s heart, his teyolia, was fed to the fire, and once his entire body had been consumed, the flames were distributed to all the regions of Mexica domination. [p126]

As a war captive, Xiuhtlamin clearly had no choice in his sacrifice, but it was nonetheless an "honored role" — the Aztec owed a collective debt to their gods for the creation and movement of the fifth sun — and without his sacrifice the world was doomed:

...if the fire was successfully lighted, a new sun would have the strength to begin spinning again; if not, there would be no sun and all would disappear.² [p103]

The Temple of Huixachtlān at Huixachtécatl

In the 16^th century, Tenōchtitlān, the island capital of the Aztec empire was reached across the waters of Lake Texcoco by a number of causeways. Now what remains of Tenōchtitlān lies beneath the streets of central Mexico city; however, unlike the Templo Mayor, Huixachtécatl — The Hill of the Star — and Huixachtlan have remained exposed.

However, according to Ross Hassig³, it is likely that the temple of Huixachtlan was specially built for the New Fire ceremony of 1507, the ceremony having previously been held at the Templo Mayor in Tenōchtitlān. Hassig also notes the difficulties reconciling the location and timing of the ceremony with respect to the zenith passage Pleiades, but there is no doubt as to the importance of the New Fire ceremony to the Aztec; the relocation to Huixachtécat, which was considerably higher than the Templo Mayo, may have allowed the ceremony to be "seen" by the increasing number of people under Aztec dominion.

For those not taking part in the ceremony itself there were many observances for what was, anthropologically, a "termination ritual": old pots were smashed and new ones readied for the new period, all fires were extinguished; pregnant women were required to be hidden from view, and children were warned not to fall asleep lest they be turned into mice.

The end of an era was a fearful thing — especially since there was no guarantee that a new era would follow: the continuation of life required blood and sacrifice.

The ultimate origin of Aztec sacrifice in general and the New Fire ceremony in particular, was that the era in which the Aztec believed themselves to live, the Fifth Sun, was initiated when the god Nanahuatzin threw himself into the fire to create the sun; however, on seeing that the sun was motionless the other gods sacrificed their blood to give him energy for his movement.

Across the land the lights are doused, and trembling in the darkness, all
are waiting, all awake. You who sweat in terror, in the courtyards, on the
hillsides, turn your eyes to Huixachtlān.

Blood will set the sun in motion, thus for movement I must die.

Fragments of Berossus, Alcor

                                                         

* Of course if the ceremony were conducted precisely every 18,980 days, being 52 years of 365 days, rather than a full solar year of 365.25, the calendars would have drifted with respect the the sky, and since the zenith passage of the Pleiades was a critical timing element, an additional thirteen nemontemi (nameless days) had to be added to keep the calendars synchronised with the stars. Thus although the two cycles coincided after 18,980 days, the New Fire ceremony was probably conducted after 18,993 days. This page provides some additional information on Aztec calendrical calculations. See also Time, history, and belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico byRoss Hassig³ for a more scholarly and in depth examination of the numerous issues relating to the timing of the ceremony.

** "It is called one whole old one when two times they circle round, when two times they meet each other at the Binding of the Years place (FC bk7, pt 8, fols. 242v-243r, chap. 9:25)"² [p45]

***  The calendar round could be referred to as either the binding of the years, or the tying of the years. Toximmolpilia is another form of toxiuh molpilia, "our years were bound" (further information under ilpilia here)

                                                          

¹ Sahagún, Bernardino de; [Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España.  English & Aztec ] General history of the things of New Spain : Florentine codex / [2nd ed., rev.] (Santa Fe, N.M. : School of American Research ;Salt Lake City, Utah : University of Utah, 1950-1982.)
British Library Shelf-mark YA.1991.b.8408 (ISBN 087480082X)
² Read, Kay Almere; Time and sacrifice in the Aztec cosmos / (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1998.) 98/25648 British Library Shelf-mark YC.1998.b.6799 (ISBN 0253334004)
³ Hassig, Ross; Time, history, and belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico / (Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2001.)

[References and quotations from the author's notes, bibliographic information via the British Library's online catalogue]

My thanks to Miguel Pérez Negrete for permission to reproduce material from his archaeology degree thesis El Templo del Fuego Nuevo en el Huixachtécatl (Cerro de la Estrella).