Cipac (Verg29r)

The name Cipac comes from the 260-day religious divinatory calendar. As is often the case, the companion number (1- 13) is not included. This may be owing to a facing tradition or to the opposition from the colonial clergy to the continued use of the divinatory calendar for naming babies. The writer may be disguising this usage, whether by not drawing a crocodile and/or omitting the number. Serious events in 1539 may have made Nahua tlacuilos more cautious when writing and painting about aspects of their faith. See Patricia Lopes Don for information about the Inquisition case against don Carlos Ometochtli, a Chichimecatecuhtli executed in late 1539, in Bonfires of Culture, 2010. Bradley Benton (The Lords of Tetzcoco, 2017, 46) also writes that the case “demonstrates that blatant disregard for Christianity had serious consequences.” Interestingly, the cipactli was apparently not well known in central Mexico, given the way many tlacuilos seemed at a loss to draw one. See a few examples below.