We have a few disparate references to professional fortune-tellers, soothsayers, diviners, etc. spread across various texts. Sahagún, for instance, writes of the tlapouhqui, tonalpouhqui, or “the soothsayer, the reader of day signs.”^1 Using the calendar, and particularly the 260-day tonalpohualli calendar, for divination was certainly a key aspect of Nahua oracular practice, but we have references to other forms of fortune-telling as well.

Ruiz de Alarcon^2 notes that an individual might seek out a ticitl to seek out something that has been lost or even a woman who had run away from her husband. The term ticitl is most often translated as “doctor,” which Ruiz de Alarcon notes (though he neglects to note that these were often female physicians), but he states they had a range of practices extending into more sorcerous deeds. The ticitl, according to him, would either partake, or have their client partake, of a mind-altering substance such as peyote, morning glory, or tobacco, and thus make a prophecy about where a lost item or person might be found.

Use of morning glory is also mentioned by Ruiz de Alarcon in context of a practice of measuring the left arm with the right palm, which could be used to determine how much longer an illness had to go before recovery. A more widespread and generalized practice which apparently had a wider dispersal across Mesoamerica was the practice of throwing maize kernels for diviniatory purposes. A tlaolxiniani would cast the kernels across a mat or into water, and then make predictions from the arrangement that resulted. So if many kernels were to fall “face up” or sink down in the water, this was considered a positive result, whereas the opposite would bode ill for whatever endeavor the soothsayer was being consulted about.

Ruiz de Alarcon does not go into much more detail about the reading of the kernels than that, preferring instead to call the whole business nothing but charlatanism and deviltry. A paper by Rojas^3 looks at contemporary practice in the Mixtec area in much more detail, examining such things as the significance of where the kernel falls, what other kernels it is touching, and the order of throws in determining the positive or negative outcomes for everything from business ventures to marriages. Going back to more primary sources, Durán^4 speaks of how, upon the birth of a child, lots would be cast upon a painted mat. Across the mat would be squares with representations of various deities, and how the lots fell across the various god-squares would be seen as predictive of the child’s life.

By far, however, the most common aspect of divination in the Aztec world was calendar based, particularly regarding the tonalpohualli. This calendar had 20 day-signs used across 13 day “weeks.” This “ritual calendar” would run concurrently with a 365 day solar calendar (xiuhpohualli) made up of 18 months of 20 days each, plus 5 “empty days” at the end of the cycle. All of this can get very confusing very quickly, so let’s just focus on the tonalpohualli and how it worked. Here is an actual example from Durán:

Week	Day	Daysign
1	1	Cipactli (Crocodile)
1	2	Ehecatl (Wind)
1	3	Calli (House)
1	4	Cuetzpalin (Lizard)
1	5	Coatl (Snake)
1	6	Mizquiztli (Death)
1	7	Mazatl (Deer)
1	8	Tochtli (Deer)
1	9	Atl (Water)
1	10	Itzcuintli (Dog)
1	11	Ozomatli (Monkey)
1	12	Grass (Malinalli)
1	13	Reed (Acatl)
2	1	Ocelotl (Jaguar)
2	2	Cuauhtli (Eagle)
2	3	Cozcacuauhtli (Vulture)
2	4	Ollin (Movement)
2	5	Tecpatl (Flint Knife)
2	6	Quiahuitl (Rain)
2	7	Xochitl (Flower)
2	8	Cipactli (Crocodile)

And so on and so forth. But we can see how the 13 days and the 20 daysigns interacted, with 1-Cipactli starting one week, but ending up as 8-Cipactli the next. This would continue until the calendar had looped all the way around back to 1-Cipactli. As a small aside, it took 52 years for both the tonalpohualli and xiuhpohualli to simultaneously reach their original starting points, and this “calendar round” was cause for a great deal of ritual and celebration, most notably the New Fire ceremony. But that’s a digression from the topic.

The point is that, in the Aztec world, the day you were born on was a big deal and could shade the rest of your life. Certain days were considered good, some bad, and others neutral. Per Durán, the good days were Cipactli, Calli, Mazatl, and Cozcacuauhtli. The bad days were Ehecatl, Coatl, Mizquiztli, Atl, Malinalli, Tecpatl, and Quiahuitl. The neutral days were Tochtli, Ozomatli, Acatl, Ocelotl, Cuauhtli, Xochitl, and Ollin.

A child born under Cipactli, for instance, was thought to be destined to be a hard-worked, very industrious and honest. Those born under Quiahuitl, a bad sign, were said to be prone to sickness, poor eyesight, and insanity. Meanwhile the child born on a neutral Tochtli daysign were thought to have a tendency towards wanderlust and with a tendency to leave their families for new lands.

The significance of these days was not solely constrained to birthdays. Fishermen and others who made their living on the water would provide offerings to the water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue on 1-Atl (Water), which seems straightforward. Less straightforward is the practice of keeping a close eye on children (lest they be possessed) and laying down new reeds at the temples on 1-Cuauhtli. The thing to keep in mind here is the multiple layers of magical thinking that went into Aztec mystical practices. To determine whether some endeavor would have good luck, you had to keep in mind not only the day of someone’s birth, but also the day they were starting their task. It might also be helpful to consult a maize-caster for a more detailed reading on the situation.

All of this seems like straightforward, almost like a horoscope, right? So let’s complicated things further. Sahagún^5 notes that it was not solely the day sign which could determine a person, but that the number of the daysign could change things as well. So days in the 8 position were always considered somewhat good, but days in the 6 position were bad. Thus you could have a good day sign whose positive aspects were washed out or mitigated by the day number, and vice versa with a bad sign. As Sahagún puts it

The order, the designations, of the twenties, or scores, all remained the same. But each one fell once, each one took the lead once. Sometimes it became good; sometimes it was not harmful, not complete destruction. Sometimes it fell in two ways, they said: perhaps good, perhaps evil; if good also perhaps evil, or only indifferent.

Starting a new project, or getting married, or even declaring a war could always be moved back to more fortuitous day (1-Coatl was a good day to declare war, for example), but what of those unlucky children born on cursed days? Well, the solution was simple: name them on a different day.

Children were not necessarily named after the day they were physically born, but they day they were first bathed.^6 Parents could, and did, delay this to scheme a better “birthday” for their child. To quote Sahagún again:

If it was a good time, they then bathed the one born at this time. But if not, they still sought one of the days signs on which he was to be bathed. The stars therefore, did not necessarily align, so much as they were shoved into alignment.

While calendrics played an fundamental role in Aztec life, there were also innumerable other rituals performed to secure divine favor and luck. Michael Smith makes the point that we have probably lost the majority of the little rituals which would have been practiced in daily life (the equivalent of not stepping on cracks to avoid breaking your mother’s back), but in the same book where Sahagún discusses daysigns, he includes an appendix which is a grab-bag of various portents, many relating to animals. A rabbit running into someone’s house, for example, was thought to be a sign the house would soon be ruined. A horned owl hooting^7 from one’s roof was seen as an ill omen, where the homeowner or his son might die, of a slave would flee, or their fields would flood, etc.

Other omens were not animal based, but involved bizarre humanoid apparitions. Seeing giant figures in the night meant you were fated to die or be captured in war. Likewise you might see a hunched, dwarfish figure at night while visiting the latrine. This too foretold your untimely death, or at least ill-fortune in your future.

So there were a multitude of omens, portents, and signs which the Aztecs could interpret. All of this could be filtered through a calendric understanding, not only of the day they occurred, but also the day of one’s birth. There were also professional soothsayers and wise-men and wise-women who could be consulted to interpret these signs, and perform their own sorts of divinations. The sheer multitude of supernatural omens your average Nahua could encounter seems daunting, but I like to think the complicated and layered system gave people an escape valve. If they came across a bad omen, they could always shade the meaning with a layer of good fortune. Likewise a good omen could have its expectations lowered (or subsequent failure explained) by means of some bad luck factor attached on to it. There’s a tendency to look at people in the past, and particularly non-European people, as irrational, when in fact they had the same capacity for reason (and self-deception, and rationalization, and excuse making…) as we do today.