Teotleco
«The energies arrive»
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 be ready to receive what returns on its own cycle.
The energy it is dedicated to is All the energies, on their arrival.
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 Teotleco. 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.
Ecology
The season
In qualitative terms October: the rains withdraw and the migratory birds arrive. A season of returns — the world changes its inhabitants.
Symbolism
Receiving what returns
The central idea: some things are not held on to; they are received when they return. The energies are not caught and kept — the world is swept, one waits, and they are welcomed. Presence is a return, not a possession.
How to cite this page
Alma Mexica, «Teotleco», The eighteen veintenas. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/veintena/teotleco/