What is the veintena of Atlcahualo?

Atlcahualo means «The ceasing of the waters». It is veintena 1 of the eighteen twenty-day stretches of the Mexica solar year. It is dedicated to the tlaloque.

How many veintenas does the Mexica year have?

Eighteen of twenty days, which make 360, plus five added at the end — the nemontemi — to complete 365. That is the solar count, the xiuhpohualli, and it is distinct from the 260-day count that gives the day-signs. Atlcahualo is the 1 of the eighteen.

Is a veintena the same as a trecena?

No, and it is the commonest confusion. A veintena is twenty days of the solar year, of which there are eighteen — Atlcahualo among them. A trecena is thirteen days of the divinatory count, of which there are twenty. Both run at once and do not cross the same way twice for fifty-two years.

Why is the full entry on Atlcahualo only in Spanish?

Because it rests on the accounts of Sahagún and Durán in their own sixteenth-century words. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation. The Spanish entry is linked.

The eighteen veintenas

Veintena 1 of 18

Atlcahualo

«The ceasing of the waters»

What a veintena is

One of the eighteen twenty-day stretches of the Mexica solar year. Eighteen of them make 360 days; five more — the nemontemi — close the 365. This is a different count from the 260-day one that gives the day-signs, and the two run at the same time.

What this one asks of you

To ask for the water that has not yet come, and to ready the earth that waits for it.

The energy it is dedicated to is The tlaloque.

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of the veintena of Atlcahualo. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

Etimología
Energías
Rituales
Sociedad
Simbolismo
Códices
Ecología
Vigencia hoy
Interpretaciones modernas

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

Symbolism

Water lives in the mountain

In Nahuatl a town is an altepetl: «water-mountain». It is not a loose metaphor — the hills were understood as vessels full of water, and the tlaloque dwelt in them. To ask for rain was therefore to climb the hills: to go to the source.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «Atlcahualo», The eighteen veintenas. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/veintena/atlcahualo/