Centzon Totochtin
In Aztec mythology, the Centzon Totochtin (Nahuatl pronunciation: [sent͡son toːˈtoːt͡ʃtin] "four-hundred rabbits"; also Centzontotochtin) are a group of divine rabbits who meet for frequent drunken parties. They include Tepoztecatl, Texcatzonatl, Colhuatzincatl, Macuiltochtli ("five-rabbit"), and Ometotchtli ("two-rabbit"). Their parents were Patecatl and Mayahuel, and they may have been brothers of Ixtlilton.
Their destruction is part of the myth of Huitzilopochtli's birth. One day Huitzilopochtli's mother Coatlicue is sweeping the temple where she serves. When Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Totochtin hear about this, they are livid, and attack and prepare to decapitate her. Just prior to or at the moment Coatlicue is decapitated, Huitzilopochtli leaps fully armed out of her womb, cuts off Coyolxauhqui's head, and throws her off the temple. The Centzon Totochtin try to escape, but Huitzilopochtli either rips out their hearts, decapitates them, throws them off the temple, or stabs them. Copil's heart is thrown onto the island where Tenochtitlan was to be founded.
Aztec priests used this myth to try to justify their ritual of human sacrifice.
See also
Additional reading
- Clavigero, Francesco Saverio (1807) [1787]. The history of Mexico. Collected from Spanish and Mexican historians, from manuscripts, and ancient paintings of the Indians. Illustrated by charts, and other copper plates. To which are added, critical dissertations on the land, the animals, and inhabitants of Mexico, 2 vols. Translated from the original Italian, by Charles Cullen, Esq. (2nd ed.). London: J. Johnson. OCLC 54014738.
- Miller, Mary; Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya:*An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. OCLC 27667317.
- Sahagún, Bernardino de (1997) [ca.1558–61]. Primeros Memoriales. Civilization of the American Indians series vol. 200, part 2. Thelma D. Sullivan (English trans. and paleography of Nahuatl text), with H.B. Nicholson, Arthur J.O. Anderson, Charles E. Dibble, Eloise Quiñones Keber, and Wayne Ruwet (completion, revisions, and ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-2909-9. OCLC 35848992.
- Smith, Michael E. (2003). The Aztecs (2nd edn. ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23015-7. OCLC 48579073.
- Wimmer, Alexis (2006). "Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique" (online version, incorporating reproductions from Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine [1885], by Rémi Siméon). (French) (Nahuatl)
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