Tonalli

Ancient Nahua people believed that it was located in the hair and the fontanel area of one's skull, and that the tonalli provided the “vigor and energy for growth and development”.

[2] In the Ancient Nahua belief, the tonalli is bestowed upon a child in utero by the aged deities known as Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, or the “Lord and Lady of Duality”.

[4] This Fire Drilling process involves an upright wooden piece being twirled rapidly on a flat base.

It produces heat through friction, although this seemingly simple instrument requires considerable skill to make anything but smoke.

In Atla in the northern Sierra de Puebla, the inhabitants believe this is the soul that travels while you sleep at night, and then comes back.

On public and private ritual occasions, people drew blood from their ears, tongues, or calves, splattered it on pieces of paper, and gave it to the spirits as tokens of thanks for benefits received or as requests for future favors.

The gods could be coaxed or rewarded, less by the physical fluid itself than by the tonalli (life force) it carried and transferred to them.

[9] The tonalli embedded within skulls of enemy warriors and captives were also offered as gifts to the gods in the temple complexes.

The dynamics of this joint essence relationship made it necessary for humans to implore each god of birth dates for internal strength, health and good fortune.

It was believed that tonalli could be taken from a human body and either offered to the gods as a form of debt payment or acquired by the ritual person who touched the physical entity in which they resided.

A person born on the first day of the 260-day cycle, would be named One Crocodile and was given a positive character that would bring about authority, wealth, and fame.

[13] It is important to note that inauspicious day signs could be ameliorated through rituals such as first baths, and life events.

The modern Nahua and the Mexica have identified the tonalli's departure as the cause of illnesses with the same general and observable symptoms as death and dying.