Trecena, veintena and the Nahuatl term for month

[David Wright]

Joe's example of "trecena" in the *Florentine Codex* sent me back to the
books to see the general picture regarding names for the 13-day period. Here
are the results, using the same sources mentioned in my previous post on the
20-day period. In each case I just checked the main descriptions of the
central Mexican calendar, so the searches were not exhaustive.

16th century
- Toribio de Benavente (Motolina): "semana," "semanas de a trece días."
- Jerónimo de Mendieta: "trece signos."
- Bernardino de Sahagún (*Florentine Codex*): "matlatlaquilhuitl omeey
motlalitiuh" (Nahuatl column), "trezena," "Algunos dizen que estos treze
dias son semanas del mes y no es ansi sino numero de dias en que reina el
signo o caracter" (Castilian column). (Book 4, chapter 1 and appendix.)
- Bartolomé de las Casas: "la semana de trece días."
- Diego Durán: "la semana de éstos era de trece días."
- Juan de Tovar: (he only deals with the 365-day year).
- Francisco Cervantes de Salazar: (he didn't understand the structure of the
tonalpohualli, failing to grasp the basic concept of 13 x 20 days).
- Alonso de Zorita: "la semana era de trece días."
- Cristóbal del Castillo (text in Nahuatl): "iz cempohualli semana matlactli
omey tonatiuh iz cencensemana."

17th century
- Juan de Torquemada: "trece días;" "algunos quisieron decir que estos trece
días eran semanas de estos indios, pero no es así, sino el número de días en
que reinaba el signo o carácter que estaba al principio."

18th century
- José Joaquín Granados y Gálvez: "13 dias", "13 casas."
- Lorenzo Boturini: "triadecaterida."
- Mariano Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia: "los Indios no tenian semanas,
pero tenian un periodo equibalente a ellas en el uso del Kalendario: Este
hera de trece dias [...];" "su semana."
- Francisco Antonio Lorenzana: "triadecaterida."
- Antonio de León y Gama: "dividian los 260 dias en 20 trecenas, que eran á
modo de nuestras semanas."

19th century
- José Fernando Ramírez: "trecenas."
- Alfredo Chavero (vol. 1 of *México a través de los siglos*, 1884): 
"trecenas."
- Eduard Georg Seler (English translations published in 1990): 
"twenty sections of thirteen days each."

20th century
- Alfonso Caso: "trecena."
- Rafael Tena: "trecena."

So Sahagún used "trecena" in this sense, as Joe showed us, although it
wasn't in general used until 1792, in León y Gama's book *Descripción
histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras...*, becoming the usual term in
19th and 20th century texts, at least as far as the sources mentioned here
will take us. Most colonial period sources use the Castilian word "semana,"
although some authors objected, notably Sahagún, which explains why he
preferred the more precise term "trecena". Torquemada's objection is
evidently inspired by Sahagún's.


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