In November 1519 CE, a group of exhausted Spanish soldiers led by Hernan Cortes found the Aztec capitol, Tenochtitlan, which had been founded in 1325. It was laid out on islands in the middle of a vast lake and was home to a population of 200,000, much larger than any European city of its day.
The Aztecs (or more accurately, the Mexica) were the result of a tradition that had begun in the mid second millennium BCE. Their culture had originated with the Olmecs, a culture we know very little about even today, and had carried on by a series of other Mesoamerican cultures, including the Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Toltecs and the Maya.
The Aztecs were the dominant group when the Spanish arrived (they had been in power for around a century) and had absorbed much of their mythology from the cultures that had power before them in order to legalize their rule. Because of this, there are no clear distinctions as to what myth belongs to the Aztecs or the other groups before them.
Despite the destruction that the Spanish brought upon the region certain information survived which details the religious beliefs of the Aztecs. A copy of the Quiche Maya’s sacred ‘Popol Vuh’ survived the destruction of the Spanish conquest, giving scholars an understanding of the regions religions, the daily importance of which was recorded in stone and paint.
According to Aztec mythology, the world came into being by a single deity. Ometeotl was the supreme god who, like most Aztec deities, had a duel nature. He was both male and female and existed beyond time and space. He/she brought the world into being with his breath and then created the gods (some 1,600). There he stopped his work and left the rest to the other gods and goddesses.
There are five ages in Aztec mythology called ‘Suns’. In the previous four ages, the world was destroyed when the sun was thrown out of the sky. Each age was presided over by a different god.
The first age was ruled over by Tezcatlipoca, the most powerful son of Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl (the male and female names of Ometeotl). One day Tezcatlipoca decided to turn himself into the sun and during his reign the world was populated by a race of vegetarian giants of immense strength. This age lasted for 676 years before Quetzalcoatl struck Tezcatlipoca into the waters with a staff, turning him into a jaguar. He devoured the giants and later rose into the sky as the constellation Ursa Major.
There are many different gods and goddesses in the Aztec pantheon, most with different forms and names. One goddess was Toci (‘Our Grandmother’) who was worshipped alongside Chicomencoatl in the annual harvest festival where she was the personification of nature’s generosity.
Another goddess was Coatlicue (‘She of the Serpent Skirt’) who was added rather late to the pantheon. She symbolised fecundity in her role of mother of the fire and warrior god Huitzilopochtli (‘Hummingbird of the South’), the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui and her 400 sons. Despite her obvious fertility, she was also seen as a virginal goddess. However, she was also associated with death and regeneration, showing the darker side of her dual nature.
The picture that is painted of the myths and legends emerging from the Aztec word can be somewhat alien to us, full of blood and death and destruction. However, the Aztecs saw the world and humanity’s role within it as part of a continuous cycle of destruction and regeneration. Within each rotation an immense disaster threatened the world and it was thought that it could only be prevented by a sacrifice of blood – human blood – to pay homage to the gods.
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