The MYTHENOR encyclopedia

Aztec Mythology (Mexica/Nahua)

Who they were

“Aztecs” is the popular name for the Mexica, a Nahuatl-speaking people who, by their own tradition, left Aztlán and founded Tenochtitlan around 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. In under two centuries, allied with Texcoco and Tlacopan, they built Mesoamerica’s largest empire, until the Spanish conquest in 1521. They inherited much older ideas — from Teotihuacan, the Toltecs of Tula and other Mesoamerican peoples, including the Maya. They saw the world as fragile, sustained by the constant effort of gods and humans: the sun needed offerings to keep moving, and time had to be renewed. We know these beliefs from painted codices, the archaeology of the Templo Mayor and works like the Florentine Codex, written in Nahuatl with Indigenous scholars under the direction of Friar Bernardino de Sahagún.

Cosmology

According to the Legend of the Suns, the world passed through four ages, each with its own sun, and all ended in catastrophe: jaguars, hurricanes, a rain of fire and a flood. The present age is the Fifth Sun, Nahui Ollin, “4 Movement,” born at Teotihuacan when humble Nanahuatzin leapt into a bonfire; it too will end, in earthquakes. The earth was made from the body of a primordial monster, Tlaltecuhtli or Cipactli, torn apart by Quetzalcóatl and Tezcatlipoca. Above lay thirteen heavens; below, the nine levels of Mictlán. One’s fate after death depended on how one died: warriors and women who died in childbirth escorted the sun; the drowned went to Tlalocan; most made the long journey to Mictlán. Time was counted with two calendars — the 260-day ritual count and the 365-day solar year — which realigned every 52 years, when the New Fire was lit.

Pantheon

The Mexica pantheon is vast and fluid: gods unfold into several faces and trade attributes. Quetzalcóatl, the Feathered Serpent, is god of wind, learning and the creation of humans; his rival and partner Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, rules night and fate. Huitzilopochtli, solar war god, was the Mexica patron, and Tláloc, lord of rain, shared the top of the Templo Mayor with him. Chalchiuhtlicue reigns over rivers and lakes; Coatlicue is the earth mother; Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacíhuatl rule the dead. There are also maize gods like Centéotl, fire gods like Xiuhtecuhtli, pulque gods like the Four Hundred Rabbits, and beings such as the tlaloque and the tzitzimime.

In MYTHENOR

In MYTHENOR, this mythology is the Valley of the Fifth Sun, beneath the Sky of the Fifth Sun, woven from songs, codices and the calendar of days. The arena is a ballcourt between pyramids, and Itzel, guardian of the Serpent’s lineage, protects the thread of light atop the great pyramid. Kaelmyr’s silence is already showing: the sun rises later each day and the pages of the future have dawned blank. The 120 cards mix real gods, creatures and objects with the game’s own creations, always flagged in this codex.

A note on respect

Nahua peoples are alive: more than one and a half million people speak Nahuatl in Mexico today, and traditions such as the Day of the Dead, the temazcal, the use of copal, beliefs about the nahual and the chaneques, and milpa farming remain present. This codex treats those traditions with respect and in the present tense. Human sacrifice was part of Mexica religion and is described here factually, without sensationalism; in the game, a duel’s “offering” is only breath, and no one gets hurt. Nahuatl terms follow the spelling most common in the cited sources.

Sources

  1. Aztec Civilization — World History Encyclopedia — Mark Cartwright
  2. Aztec Pantheon — World History Encyclopedia — Mark Cartwright
  3. Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of Life in 16th-Century Mexico — World History Encyclopedia — Jordy Samuels
  4. Mitos de los orígenes en Mesoamérica (Arqueología Mexicana) — Miguel León-Portilla
  5. Sun Stone — World History Encyclopedia — Mark Cartwright
  6. Digital Florentine Codex (Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España) — Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators; Getty Research Institute

The 120 cards