The metztli Huey Tecuilhuitl officially began yesterday on the tonalli Makuilli Cozcacuauhtli and will continue for the next 19 days. In Pre-Cuauhtemoc times, this was the official metztli in which those who could, gave food to all the poor men and women in honor of Xilonen. During the feasts of this month, the traditional drink chienpinolli was prepared along with tamales. The people who wished to eat, brought containers from home and were served the amount they desired and they took what remained home in their containers (Florentine Codex, book 4, page 14).
This is a good reminder for us to give whatever we can to help those in need. -Perhaps we can start to organize ourselves to the degree that we take the meaning of Huey Tecuilhuitl literally and offer our nutritious native foods to those in need in our communities.
-Perhaps we can reflect on the organizations who are gathering resources to help Indigenous people preserve their language and culture and we can help their cause:
-Perhaps we can reflect on the horrors our comrades in Palestine are currently facing and come up with the realization that we can help the Palestinians directly by giving to them whatever we can so they can continue to have the strength to resist their aggressors:
-Perhaps as we continue to become aware of the increasingly aggressive police brutality cases through social media we can take a moment and give to organizations that are fighting hard for real change: . Maybe we are desensitized at this point but it is still so shocking that we can watch the video of Eric Garner being murdered by a police officer and while the true nature of the police state was there for all to see.
It is time that we move past resisting religious and consumerist holidays that are foreign to us and begin to celebrate our own holidays.
