Cipactli

Personality

creative · pioneering · nurturing · resourceful · fortunate · elemental

In the Aztec tonalpohualli, a person whose tonalli, or birth sign, is Cipactli is described as a creative beginner and provider, carrying the primordial energy of the crocodile or earth monster from whose body the gods made land and sky. As the first of the twenty day signs, under the patronage of Tonacatecuhtli, the lord of sustenance, it is associated with origins, abundance and the power that sustains life.

Modern interpretations, drawing on the colonial accounts of Aztec diviners, credit Cipactli people with initiative, vitality, a protective and nurturing instinct and the resourcefulness to start things from nothing; births on 1 Cipactli were considered fortunate. Their challenges are said to be stubbornness, an overwhelming manner and a tendency to devour, like the hungry earth monster, more than they need.

In love Cipactli people are portrayed as devoted providers for family; in work, as founders, organisers and people who make things grow. For the Mexica the tonalli was a gift of heat and destiny received at birth, read by the tonalpouhque together with the number of the day and its trecena, never from the sign alone.