A veintena is the Spanish-derived name for a 20-day period used in

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Mesoamerican calendars The calendar, calendrical systems devised and used by the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica, primarily a 260-day year, were used in religious observances and social rituals, such as divination. These calendars have been dated to early as ca. ...

. The division is often casually referred to as a "month", although it is not coordinated with the

lunar cycle A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth. Because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth. In common usage, the four majo ...

. The term is most frequently used with respect to the 365-day

Aztec calendar The Aztec or Mexica calendar is the calendar, calendrical system used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian era, Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of Mexico, peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the bas ...

, the '' xiuhpohualli'', although 20-day periods are also used in the 365-day

Maya calendar The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon ...

(the Mayan ''tun''), as well as by other Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Zapotec and

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are Indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica of Guerrero, Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerre ...

. The 365-day cycle is divided into 18 veintenas of 20 days each, giving 360 days; an additional 5 "nameless days" or '' nemontemi'' are appended to bring the total to 365. The name used for these periods in pre-Columbian times is unknown. In Nahuatl, the word for "twenty days" is ''cempōhualilhuitl'' from the words ''cempōhualli'' "twenty" and ''ilhuitl'' "day".WHP Oregon Nahuatl Dictionary
/ref> Through Spanish usage, the 20-day period of the Aztec calendar has become commonly known as a ''veintena''. The Aztec word for moon is ''metztli'', and this word is today to describe these 20-day periods, although as the sixteenth-century missionary and early ethnographer,

Diego Durán Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in ...

explained:

In ancient times the year was composed of eighteen months, and thus it was observed by these Indian people. Since their months were made of no more than twenty days, these were all the days contained in a month, because they were not guided by the moon but by the days; therefore, the year had eighteen months. The days of the year were counted twenty by twenty.

Each 20-day period started on a ''Cipactli'' (Crocodile) day of the ''tonalpohualli'' for which a festival was held. The eighteen ''veintena'' are listed below. The dates in the chart are from the early eyewitnesses, Diego Durán and

Bernardino de Sahagún Bernardino de Sahagún ( – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he jour ...

. Each wrote what they learned from Nahua informants. Sahagún's date precedes the Durán's observations by several decades and is believed to be more recent to the Aztec surrender to the Spanish. Both are shown to emphasize the fact that the beginning of the Native new year became non-uniform as a result of an absence of the unifying force of Tenochtitlan after the Mexica defeat.

References

Mesoamerican calendars {{Mesoamerica-stub

See also

References