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In Mesoamerican cultures, faith was an important part of their life and death. |
In Mesoamerican cultures, faith was an important part of their life and death. |
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==Mythology== |
==Mythology== |
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:''Main article: [[Aztec mythology]].'' |
:''Main article: [[Aztec mythology]].'' |
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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. |
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. |
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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 nahual god, and also replacing the Nahua Sun god with their own. Thus duality 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". |
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 nahual god, and also replacing the Nahua Sun god with their own. Thus duality 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". |
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Revision as of 12:56, 23 April 2006
In Mesoamerican cultures, faith was an important part of their life and death.
Mythology
- Main article: Aztec mythology.
The main deity in the Mexica religion was their 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 cronicles agree on what was devouring, one mention it was a precious bird, and while Father Duran indicate it was a snake, this is not mentioned in any prehispanic source) perched on a fruit bearing nopal cactus. According to legend, Huitzilpochtli had to kill his nephew, Cópil and threw his heart on the lake. But, since Cópil was his relative, Huitzilpochtli decided to honour 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 nahual god, and also replacing the Nahua Sun god with their own. Thus duality 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.
The Nahua concept of god is somehow different from the European concept. It would be better to call them spirits, so most scholars prefer to translate the word "teotl" as "lord" instead of "god". Those entities, mixed their attributes with others. Since they had no dogmas, their religion was constantly evolving.
Human sacrifice
- Main article: Human sacrifice in Aztec culture
For most people today, and for the European Christians who first met the Aztecs, human sacrifice was and is the most striking feature of Aztec civilization.
Human sacrifice was practiced throughout the Aztec empire. One important place where evidence of human sacrifices has been found is at Tenochititlan, the main Aztec city buried under today’s Mexico City. The excavation 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 in popular accounts.
The antecedents of human sacrifice in the Aztec culture
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, but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale.
Assessment of the practice of human sacrifice
In the book of the "anonymous informants" of Sahagun, an Aztec defends the practice of human sacrifice, asserting that it was not much different from the European way of waging warfare : Europeans killed the warriors in battle, Aztecs killed the warriors after the battle.
While this practice may seem barbaric by modern standards, accounts by the Tlaxcalteca, the main enemy of the Aztecs, show that at least some of them considered it an honour to be sacrificed. In one legend, the warrior Tlahuicole was freed by the Aztecs but eventually returned of his own volition to die in ritual sacrifice.
This penchant for human sacrifice proved to be the undoing of the Aztecs. Their need for a continual supply of victims drove many neighboring cities to the side of the Spaniards.
Aztec religion in contemporary society
In recent decades, a number of groups are trying to revive the Aztec religion. In the process, these groups are mixing concepts from European and Indian esoteric traditions, thus reinventing the prehispanic religions. Groups of them gather at the Aztec pyramids every solstice, dressed in white, while "recharging" their "energy"). Many of these agroups completely deny the practices of human sacrifice and anthropophagy. While the archeological evidence unearthed to date do not support the huge numbers recorded in popular accounts, the evidence does seem to indicate that they were real, and can not be denied.