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Description
Celebration:

The atamalcualiztli festival occurred every 8 years, where people celebrated by fasting and consuming only water tamales. This ceremony was overlapped during the Quecholli and Huey Tecuilhuitl month festivals and it celebrated a liminal moment:

Tezcatlipoca seduces Xochiquetzal, maize resurges, clouds form in the mountains, birds, who also represent dead souls, announce the rains, Tlazolteotl gives birth, and the sun appears with the help of Venus.

Costumed Participants:

1. The “Mazatecatl” (pl. Mazatecah). These were brave people who swallowed snakes and frogs whole from a pond.

2-6. The bird dancers. The birds here seem to represent messengers of the underworld and the souls of the dead such as the crow, and owls, and also birds associated with the sun who announce the rains like the hummingbirds.

The Teteoh who “arrive”:

The ixiptla's or deity impersonators consisted of the following: the Tlaloque who come in a group of five, Tlaochcalcatl Yaotl, Chicomecoatl, Xilonen, an unspecified pulque God, Napatecuhtli, Macuilxochitl, Xochipilli, Tzaputlatena, Tezacoac Ayopechtli, Ixcozauhqui, and Tezcatlipoca. Xochiquetzal appears by a tree, weaving on a backstrap loom.

Fuentes/Sources:

-Morales Damián, Manuel. (2010). El ayuno de tamales de agua. Iconografía de la lámina de Atamalcualiztli, Primeros Memoriales.

-Primeros Memoriales by Bernardino de Sahagún
See Less

Description
Celebration:

The atamalcualiztli festival occurred every 8 years, where people celebrated by fasting and consuming only water tamales. This ceremony was overlapped during the Quecholli and Huey Tecuilhuitl month festivals and it celebrated a liminal moment:

Tezcatlipoca seduces Xochiquetzal, maize resurges, clouds form in the mountains, birds, who also represent dead souls, announce the rains, Tlazolteotl gives birth, and the sun appears with the help of Venus.

Costumed Participants:

1. The “Mazatecatl” (pl. Mazatecah). These were brave people who swallowed snakes and frogs whole from a pond.

2-6. The bird dancers. The birds here seem to represent messengers of the underworld and the souls of the dead such as the crow, and owls, and also birds associated with the sun who announce the rains like the hummingbirds.

The Teteoh who “arrive”:

The ixiptla's or deity impersonators consisted of the following: the Tlaloque who come in a group of five, Tlaochcalcatl Yaotl, Chicomecoatl, Xilonen, an unspecified pulque God, Napatecuhtli, Macuilxochitl, Xochipilli, Tzaputlatena, Tezacoac Ayopechtli, Ixcozauhqui, and Tezcatlipoca. Xochiquetzal appears by a tree, weaving on a backstrap loom.

Fuentes/Sources:

-Morales Damián, Manuel. (2010). El ayuno de tamales de agua. Iconografía de la lámina de Atamalcualiztli, Primeros Memoriales.

-Primeros Memoriales by Bernardino de Sahagún
See Less