Aztec religion

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The Religion of the Aztecs was a typical Mesoamerican religion combining elements of polytheism, shamanism and animism within a framework of Astronomy and calendrics. Like other Mesoamerican religion it had elements of human sacrifice in connection with a large number of religious festivals which were held according to patterns of the Aztec calendar. It had a large and ever increasing pantheon; the Aztecs would often adopt into their own religious practice deities of other geographic regions or peoples. Aztec cosmology divided the world into upper and nether-worlds, each associated with a specific set of deities and astronomical objects. Important in Aztec religion were the sun, moon and the planet Venus - all of which held different symbolic and religious meanings and were connected to deities and geographical places. Large parts of the Aztec pantheon were inherited from previous Mesoamerican civilizations and others, such as Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca were venerated by different names in most cultures throughout the history of Mesoamerica. For the Aztecs especially important deities were Tlaloc the god of rain, Huitzilopochtli Patron god of the Mexica tribe, Quetzalcoatl culture hero and god of civilization and order, and Tezcatlipoca God of the Underworld, connected with war and sorcery. Each of these gods had their own temples within the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan - Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli were both worshipped in the Great Temple. Also important in Aztec religion was the sacred aspect of geography - certain geographical features and locations being connected to different deities and different religious practices. A common Aztec religious practice was the recreation of the divine: Mythological events would be ritually recreated and living persons would impersonate specific deities and be revered as a god - and often ritually sacrificed.

[edit] Teotl

The concept of "Teotl" is central to Aztec religion. In the Nahuatl language it is often glossed as "God", but may in fact be a much wider term referring to an immaterial dynamic energy of divinity, akin to the Polynesian concept of Mana^[1] The nature of "Teotl" has been an ongoing discussion between scholars for many years. It is also a key element in the understanding of the fall of the Aztec empire, because it seems that the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II and the Aztecs in general referred to Cortés and he conqistadors as "Teotl" - it has been widely believed that this means that they believed them to be Gods, but a a better understanding of "teotl" might suggest that they were merely seen as "mysterious" and "inexplicable".^[2] Many of the gods of the Aztecs had names ending in "teotl" - but equally many didn't.

[edit] The Pantheon

The gods of the Aztecs can be grouped into complexes related to different themes. The Aztecs would often adopt gods from different cultures and allow them to be worshipped as part of their pantheon - the fertility god Xipe Totec for example was originally a god of the Yopi (The Nahuatl name of the Tlapanec people) but became an integrated part of the Aztec belief system; sometimes foreign gods would be identified with an already existing god. Other Deities, for examle Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl had roots in earlier civilizations of Mesoamerica and were worshipped by many cultures and by many names. Some gods embodied aspects of nature. A large group of gods were related to pulque, drunkenness, excess, fun and games. Other gods were associated with specific trades. Many gods had multiple aspects with different names, where each name highlighted a specific function or trait of the god. Often, sometimes, two distinct gods were conflated into one.

Tezcatlipoca depicted in the Codex Borgia.

Cultural Gods

• Tezcatlipoca - a panmesoamerican shaman God
• Quetzalcoatl - a panmesoamerican god of life, the wind and the morningstar
• Tlaloc - a panmesoamerican god of rain, storm, water and thunder
• Mixcoatl - the tribal God of many of the Nahua people such as the Tlaxcalteca
• Huitzilopochtli - tribal God of the Mexica of Tenochtitlan

Nature gods

• Tonatiuh - The Sun
• Metztli - The Moon
• Tlaltecuhtli - Goddess of the Earth
• Chalchiuhtlicue - Goddess of springs
• Centzon Huitznahua - Gods of the stars
• Ehecatl the Wind, often conflated with Quetzalcoatl and called "Quetzalcoatl-Ehecatl"

Xipe Totec "Our flayed lord" wearing a human skin depicted in the Codex Borgia.

Gods of creation

• Ometeotl/Ometecutli/Omecihuatl/Tonacatecutli/Tonacacihuatl - The doublegendered creator god
• Huehueteotl/Xiuhtecutli - god of origin, time, fire and old age
• Coatlicue/Toci/Teteo Innan/Tonantzin - female progenitor goddesses

Gods of Pulque and excess

• Tlazolteotl - Goddess of filth and guilt and of cleansing
• Tepoztecatl - God of Pulque worshipped at Tepoztlan
• Xochiquetzal - Goddess of pleasure and indulgence, and sex
• Mayahuel - Goddess of Pulque and Maguey
• The Auiateteo:
  • Macuiltochtli
  • Macuilxochitl
  • Macuilcuetzpalin
  • Macuilcozcacuauhtli
  • Macuilmalinalli
• Centzon Totochtin - "the four hundred rabbits of drunkenness"
  • Ometocthli - leader of the Centzon Totochtin

Xochipilli wearing a deersking as depicted in the Codex Borgia.

Gods of Maize and fertility

• Xipe Totec - Fertility god associated with spring
• Cinteotl - God of Maize
• Xilonen/Chicomecoatl - Goddess of tender maize
• Xochipilli God of happiness, pleasure and fertility

Gods of death and the underworld

• Mictlantecutli - Lord of the underworld
• Mictlancihuatl - Queen of the underworld
• Xolotl

Tradegods

• Yacatecutli - god of merchants
• Patecatl - god of doctors and medicine

[edit] Cosmovision and Ritual

Aztec cosmological drawing with the God Xiuhtecuhtli lord of fire and of the Calendar in the center and the other important gods around him each in front of a sacred tree. From the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.

The Aztec world consisted of three main parts: the earth world on which humans lived, an underworld which belonged to the dead and the upper plane in the sky. The earth and the nether world were both open for humans to enter, whereas the upper plane in the sky was impenetrable to humans. The Aztec underworld was called Mictlan ("place of death"). Existence was envisioned as straddling the two worlds in a cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. Thus as the sun was believed to dwell in the underworld at night to rise reborn in the morning, and the maize kernels were entered later to sprout anew, so the human and divine existence was envisioned as being cyclical. The upper and nether worlds were both thought to be layered. Mictlan had 9 layers which were inhabited by different deities and mythical beings. The sky had 13 layers, the highest of which was called Omeyocan "place of duality" and which held the progenitor dual God Ometeotl. Other mythical places were Tlalocan, "The place of Tlaloc", a verdant springlike place with abundant water where people who drowned had their afterlife and Tamoanchan, a mythical place of the origin of the gods.

The Aztec idea of the afterlife for fallen warriors and women who died in childbirth was that their souls would be transformed into hummingbirds that would follow the sun on its journey through the sky. Souls of people who died from less glorious causes would go to Mictlan - place of the dead.

In Aztec cosmovision as in Mesoamerica in general, Geographical features such as caves and mountains held symbolical value as places of crossing between the upper and nether worlds. Also the cardinal directions were symbolically connected to the religious layout of the world, each direction was associated with specific colours and Gods.

[edit] Sacrifice

To the Aztecs death was instrumental in the perpetuation of creation and gods and humans alike had the responsibility of sacrificing themselves in order to allow life to continue. This worldview is best described in the myth of the Five suns which is recorded in the Codex Chimalpopoca - here it is recounted how Quetzalcoatl first stole the seed of life in the underworld, and how later the Gods created four successive worlds or "suns" for their subjects to live in, all of which were destroyed. Then by an act of self-sacrifice one of the Gods, Nanahuatzin, "the pimpled one", caused a fifth and final sun to rise and the first humans, made out of maize dough could live, thanks to his sacrifice - and they, the humans, were responsible for its continued revival. Human sacrifice among the Aztecs and in Mesoamerica in general must be seen in this context - sacrifice and death is necessary for the continued existence of the world. Likewise each part of life had one or more deities associated with it and these had to be paid their dues in order to achieve success. Gods were paid with offerings sacrifice - often offerings of food, flowers, effigies, animals. But the larger the thing required from the God the larger the sacrifice had to be, and for the most important rites one would offer ones own blood, a human life or even a Gods life.

[edit] Deity impersonation

An important aspect of Aztec ritual was the impersonation of deities. Priests or otherwise specially elected individuals would be dressed up to achieve the likeness of a specific God. A person with the honorable charge of impersonating a god was called "ixiptlatli" and was venerated as an actual physical manifestation of the God - until the inevitable end when the Gods likeness had to be killed as the ultimate sacrifice under great circumstance and festivities.

[edit] Reenactment of Myth

As with the impersonation of Gods Aztec ritual was often a reenactment of a mythical event which at once served to remind the Aztecs of their myths but which also served to perpetuate the world by repeating the important events of the creation. For example the ritual at the feast of Huitzilopochtli would reenact legend of the birth of Huitzilopochtli and his fight against his sister Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua. The ritual at the New Fire Ceremony was a reenactment of the creation of the fifth sun.

[edit] The Calendar

Main article: Aztec calendar

The Aztec religious year was connected mostly to the natural 365 day calendar, the xiuhpohualli ("yearcount") - which followed the agricultural year. Each of the 18 twenty-day months of the religious year had its particular religious festival - most of which were connected to agricultural themes. The greatest festival was the Xiuhmolpilli or New Fire ceremony held every 52 years when the ritual and agricultural calendars coincided and a new cycle started. In the Table below is shown the veintena festivals, the deities with which they were associated and the kinds of rituals involved. The descriptions of the rites are based on the descriptions given in Sahagúns "Primeros Memoriales", and the Florentine Codex and of Fray Diego Duráns "Of the Gods and rites" - all of which provide detailed accounts of the rituals written in Nahuatl soon after the conquest.

[edit] Mythology

Main article: Aztec mythology.

The main deity in the Mexica religion was the sun god and war god, Huitzilopochtli. He directed the Mexicas to found a city on the site where they would see an eagle, devouring (not all chronicles agree on what the eagle was devouring, one says it was a precious bird, and though Father Duran says it was a snake, this is not mentioned in any pre-Hispanic source) perched on a fruit bearing nopal cactus. According to legend, Huitzilpochtli had to kill his nephew, Cópil, and throw his heart on the lake. But, since Cópil was his relative, Huitzilpochtli decided to honor him, and caused cactus to grow over Cópil's heart which became a sacred place.

Legend has it that this is the site on which the Mexicas built their capital city of Tenochtitlan. Tenochtitlan was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco where modern-day Mexico City is located. This legendary vision is pictured on the Coat of Arms of Mexico.

According to their own history, when the Mexicas arrived in the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco, they were considered by the other groups as the least civilized of all. The Mexicas decided to learn, and they took all they could from other peoples, especially from the ancient Toltec (whom they seem to have partially confused with the more ancient civilization of Teotihuacan). To the Mexicas, the Toltecs were the originators of all culture; "Toltecayotl" was a synonym for culture. Mexica legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the mythical city of Tollan, which they also identified with the more ancient Teotihuacan.

In the process, they adopted most of the Toltec/Nahua (code) pantheon, but they also made significant changes in their religion. As the Mexica rose in power, they adopted the Nahua gods at equal status to their own. For instance, Tlaloc was the rain god of all the Nahuatl-speaking peoples. They put their local god Huitzilopochtli at the same level of the ancient Nahua god, and also replaced the Nahua Sun god with their own. Thus, Tlaloc/Huitzilopochtli represents the duality of water and fire, as evidenced by the twin pyramids uncovered near the Zocalo in Mexico City in the late 1970s, and it reminds us of the warrior ideals of the Aztec: the Aztec glyph of war is "burning water".

Another significant Mexica deity was the earth mother goddess Tonantzin. It was her shrine in the northern section of today's Mexico City which was later transformed into the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a central icon in Mexican Catholic belief, and dances of pre-Hispanic origins are still performed there to this day. This was an incarnation of Coatlicoe, the goddess of the snake skirt and mother of Huitzilopochtli.

[edit] Human sacrifice

Aztec sacrifice

Main article: Human sacrifice in Aztec culture

Human sacrifice was practiced on a grand scale throughout the Aztec empire, although the exact figures are unknown. At Tenochtitlán, the principal Aztec city, according to Ross Hassing "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed over the course of four days for the dedication of the Great Pyramid in 1487.^[4] Excavations of the offerings in the main temple has provided some insight in the process, but the dozens of remains excavated are far short of the thousands of sacrifices recorded by eyewitnesses and other historical accounts. For millennia, the practice of human sacrifice was widespread in Mesoamerican and South American cultures. It was a theme in the Olmec religion, which thrived between 1200 BC and 400 BC. Later the Maya also made human sacrifices.

[edit] External links

• Aztecs at Mexicolore: constantly updated educational site specifically on the Aztecs, for serious students of all ages
• Aztec Mythology: Gods, Goddesses, Spirits, Legends of the Aztecs: a site with information about the gods of the Aztecs

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Miller, Mary; and Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. 

• Hvidtfeldt, Arild (1958). Teotl and Ixiptlatli: some central conceptions in ancient Mexican religion: with a general introduction on cult and myth. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.