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the Aztec Sacred Calendar in full color more about The Aztec Book of Destiny The Aztec Book of Destiny homepage meet Rick Holmer future books by Rick Holmer Purchase The Aztec Book of Destiny: return to Rick Holmer's homepage return to HolmerArts.com	Ethnographic background to The Aztec Book of Destiny: The genesis of The Aztec Book of Destiny dates back to about 1970 when I enrolled in an anthropology class taught by Charles E. Dibble at the University of Utah. He introduced me to the wonders and mysteries of the past, and for this I will forever be grateful. But he did much more – he shared a personal insight about how the present is related to the past, especially as manifest in Mexico. Perhaps because of my interest in his perspectives or my inquisitive persistence, he hired me to supervise access to his rare book collection which was housed in a walk-in bank safe in his office. I was to be there during specific hours so that other students could come and use the documents to complete their assignments and research projects. Needless to say, there were many hours when I was alone with these documents and I took advantage of the time to absorb all I could. I was an amateur photographer (with my own darkroom - also known as a kitchen) and I had worked for years as a draftsman. I applied both of these skills copying and transcribing the documents of interest to me. I still retain most of these photos and drawings which have become an invaluable resource for my research. I was fascinated by all things Mexican and in 1973 the University of Utah offered an ethnographic field school in Mexico. I enrolled not knowing what I might pursue but the graduate teaching assistant mentioned he had seen an old manuscript in a church in the highlands of Mexico in the state of Guanajuato. He had photographed the manuscript (35mm color transparencies) which showed hand-written script as well as numerous drawings. When enlarged however, the photos were too grainy to be read although it was clear that the drawings showed both Hispanic and Prehispanic elements. This was enough to entice me to spend the summer in Mexico documenting the manuscript and to begin the journey that I am again traveling today. Upon arrival at my destination, the priest of the church invited me to stay in a room at the base of the bell tower adjacent to his library (which housed the ancient manuscript of interest). He generously introduced me to many village residents and fed me. He was a learned man who spoke several languages (all European including French, Spanish and English), but none of the indigenous languages. However, he was very proud of his native Tarascan heritage and often bragged about the Aztec's inability to conquer his ancestors. Every night was consumed by storytelling fueled by drinking brandy and coke (clearly the preferred beverage of all males I met). When not preaching, storytelling or drinking, he was enquiring. He read everything he could find and he mined every mind he encountered, including mine. I had brought a collection of photographs and drawings of Professor Dibble's library and we spent many evenings speculating about what all the ancient codex glyphs might mean. Actually he had very little knowledge of tradition since he had spent most of his life becoming a learned man of the Catholic world, not his own heritage. Every day for over a month I spent transcribing the text of the ancient manuscript. I soon discovered that about one-third was in Spanish and the rest in Otomi - the regional indigenous language. I went on a quest to find an Otomi speaker who could help me translate the text. I devoted a few weeks to this effort and ultimately resigned myself to failure. My last effort before I was to head back to the States provided the impetus and insight to write The Aztec Book of Destiny. About a week before I was scheduled to leave I was invited to a birthday party for the daughter of an important family in the community. I had gotten to know them well during my stay and I was eager to attend the celebration. The mother of the household mentioned that her father was traveling by bus to town for the occasion and that he was very knowledgeable about traditional history and beliefs, and that he spoke his native language. I was eager to meet him assuming that he spoke Otomi and he might help me translate the native text of the old manuscript that had drawn me to Mexico. I was prepared to stay longer to do so if necessary. I was introduced to him, not by name, but by his status as the grandfather of the birthday girl. He introduced himself, with a glint in his eye and a slight grin, as Diego Nepantla, and that is what I called him. Over the next several days I addressed him as don Diego (being influenced by Carlos Castenada's books) or Señor Nepantla, which always elicited a grin from all those present. On our last day together I addressed him as Maestro Nepantla which everyone seemed to enjoy. It became clear to me that the name I knew him by was not his real name, but it was what he wanted me to know him by. After returning to the States I discovered that nepantla is a Nahuatl (i.e., Aztec) word meaning "in the middle, or in between," a suitable name for "mi maestro" since he lived between two worlds - the traditional and the modern. After my introduction to don Diego I hurriedly directed the conversation toward the Otomi text in the manuscript I was documenting. I was immediately deflated when he said he knew nothing of the Otomi language or their traditional culture. I was totally confused, believing that he was knowledgeable about local indigenous language and society, so I regrouped and started some small talk about his granddaughter's birthday party. He then said the seminal phrase that went something like this: "today is not her real birthday - this is just the day we are told to celebrate her journey through life by those who do not understand the true progression of time." Still disheartened, I indifferently asked about her "real" birthday. He said his granddaughter's true birthday was Five Deer and we were having this party on Ten Wind which was many, many days off. I immediately recognized his reference to day names within the traditional Prehispanic calendar of the Aztecs because of my work with the ancient codices in Professor Dibble's library. I asked him how much he knew about the ancient calendar, and he simply smiled and nodded. Over the next six days I learned that he was a calendar expert who had lived by it all his life. He was revered by some as being the living authority on the calendar and he was sought out by many traditional people for his knowledge. He was very dismayed that only old folks seemed to care - virtually no youth showed any interest in learning what he was anxious to share. It turned out that don Diego was not from a local village but had traveled for two days on various busses from his remote home in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. He spoke his native Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs and Toltecs) as well as Spanish and some English. His English resulted from several years as a young migrant farm worker in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. He was a worldly man who was well educated by local standards. Since middle age he made his living as a traditional curandero (healer) and calendar keeper. Don Diego and I spent several hours a day for nearly a week studying and discussing the various photos and drawings of traditional codices that I had brought with me to Mexico. Since he was a calendar keeper we started with the Codex Borbonicus and the Tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection, two Aztec codices that were universally interpreted as traditional calendar depictions. I had 8" by 8" black-and-white photos that I had taken of the 1940 publication entitled The Sacred Almanac of the Aztecs (Tonalamatl of the Codex Borbonicus), Limited Edition edited by George C. Vaillant for the American Museum of Natural History; and 8" by 10" black-and-white photos of drawings made by Leon y Gama in the late eighteenth century of the Tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection. Working with these two documents don Diego quickly unraveled the complexity of symbols and glyphs. As I describe in The Aztec Book of Destiny, he first recognized the basic organization as we discussed various interpretations I recounted from the academic literature (especially in the Handbook of Middle American Indians). He quickly went to the crux of the matter stating unequivocally that the calendars we were looking at were used to determine the nature of the souls inherited at birth. Every person acquires three souls from their day of birth in the traditional calendar, which I explain in detail in The Aztec Book of Destiny. Don Diego and I looked at photos of the other configurations of the traditional calendar as well (such as those contained in the Borgia group of codices). The Borbonicus layout is in the form of a capital "L" laying on its back (which I call the "lazy L" configuration). The other format is a matrix made up of 7 rows and 52 columns. The Borgia group of codices contains both formats so it appears that they were used together, or at least by the same tonalpouhque (Nahuatl for calendar priests). We struggled with the matrix format and don Diego eventually concluded, and made convincing arguments, that the matrix operated somewhat like our modern daily horoscope (this is the topic of a future book). We discussed many things when we met each morning over strong coffee and bread. He made several important points about how to unravel the mysteries encoded in the ancient manuscripts. The one he emphasized continually, which has proven to be the most important as I have worked with the codices over the past many years, involves where to focus my effort. I consistently wanted to get into the minds of the ancient Aztecs to figure out what the glyphs and symbols meant to them. He would laugh and even scoff at my efforts telling me I would go crazy trying this approach; and I would get frustrated and would probably give up before I got anywhere. He told me instead to look at the world around me. Study the people I know. Relate their birth date in the sacred calendar (their name-day), to their personality and character as I observe it. He continually instructed me to not focus on the past because I would be unable to view the detail necessary to get anywhere; but instead to concentrate on the present where all the detail I need is awaiting my observation. He practiced what he preached - every time we discussed specifics about an individual day he used examples of people he knew. As a matter of fact, he never talked about a name-day in the abstract - it was only discussed by using examples of people and events from his own life. The Aztec Book of Destiny summarizes what I learned from Maestro Nepantla and what I have learned by following his recommendations. During the years since that fortuitous meeting I have intended to complete this book but have had competing and conflicting employment and family responsibilities. Throughout the ensuing 30+ years I have kept up with the literature about ethnographic and ethnohistoric research in central Mexico; and I have fully expected to see articles describing experiences similar to mine. But none have emerged, at least for central Mexico (however, Barbara Tedlock published her remarkable experiences with the Maya in 1982 entitled Time and the Highland Maya). Was don Diego really the last of the traditional Nahua calendar keepers? Sometimes I regret not having pursued the subject more vigorously at that time (see my brief biography under the "meet Rick Holmer" link on this page) but in many ways I'm glad I waited. My skills with statistics were just developing then and now I teach advanced statistical applications at the university level. The Aztec Book of Destiny would be much less convincing without the inclusion of the statistics documenting solid correlations between the Aztec calendar and success in various careers. Plus, my family and I have had a very good and adventurous life pursuing other avenues in anthropology. The last time I met with Maestro Diego Nepantla was when he was boarding the bus to return to his home hundreds of miles away. I asked him if I could visit him at his home the following summer and he gave me several excuses why that would be difficult. His home was located a two hour walk from the nearest village, and that village was not accessible by bus. I reminded him that I owned an old Volkswagen Beetle and I could drive it just about anywhere. He said that I would have to leave it in the village and walk in, which would be O.K., but by the time I returned to my car there would be nothing left to salvage (he was not very optimistic about the youth of the 1970s). It became clear to me that he was saying goodbye forever, and that we had had a wonderful time that he enjoyed perhaps as much as I. I insisted on giving him the photos of the two "lazy L" calendars which he reluctantly accepted. He said he had nothing to give me in return but I reminded him that that he had given me a wealth of information and guidance - all I had to do was distill it into something meaningful and useful. This is what I have attempted in The Aztec Book of Destiny.