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appetite. To defeat this formidable
foe, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca
took the form of serpents, and
Tezcatlipoca used part of his body
as bait to try to catch Tlaltecuhtli.
When the monster surfaced,
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca
seized it and ripped it in two. Half
was thrown upward to create the
sky and stars; the other half floated
in the ocean and became the
earth. In the fight, Tezcatlipoca
lost his right foot; he is often
depicted with a piece of obsidian
in its place.
Taking the earthly body of
Tlaltecuhtli—still living even after
its violent division—XipetotecTHE LEGEND OF THE FIVE SUNS
and Huitzilopochtli transformed it
into elements that could sustain
human beings in the future. The
monster’s hair became trees and
grasses, its skin was turned into
plants, its nose into hills and
valleys, its eyes and sockets into
wells and caves, and its shoulders
into mountains. Tlaltecuhtli’s
voraciousness still remained, and
he demanded human blood as a
form of sacrifice.Re-creating humans
Quetzalcoatl decided to journey to
the Underworld to gather the bones
of previous generations of humans
and create a new race to repopulatethe Earth. First he had to seek
permission from Mictlantecuhtli,
lord of the Underworld. When
Quetzalcoatl requested the bones,
Mictlantecuhtli said he would hand
them over if Quetzalcoatl walked
around him four times while
blowing a conch-shell trumpet. It
was a trick. The conch Quetzalcoatl
was given had no holes to blow
through. Undeterred, the god
accomplished the task by using
worms to eat holes in the side of
the shell and placing bees inside it
to make it hum. Quetzalcoatl is
often depicted with a conch shell
on his chest.
His plot foiled, Mictlantecuhtli
handed over the bones, but then
sent servants ahead of Quetzalcoatl
to dig a hole to trap him. On his
way back to earth with the bones,
the god stumbled into the pit. He
clambered out, but in the fall the
bones broke into pieces.
Quetzalcoatl sought the help of
the fertility goddess, Cihuacoatl,
who ground down the bones and
poured the dust into her cauldron.
The gods then gathered around
and pierced their bodies, letting
their blood flow into the bonemeal.
From this mixture, they createdThe Aztecs used a dual calendar—a solar
calendar of 365 days for agriculture and a sacred
ritual calendar of 260 days. The latter is grouped
into 20 equal periods for 20 deities, each
lord of its own domain,
encircling the sun
god, Tonatiuh.Flower
StormFlintQuakeCondorEagleJaguarReedGrass
Dog MonkeyWaterRabbitDeerSkullSerpentDragonTempleWindLight"Gods, what will
[the human race] eat?
Let food be looked for."
Then the ant went and got
a kernel of corn ...
History and
Mythology of the AztecsUS_248-255_Sun_in_Sky.indd 252 05/12/17 4:16 pm
253
Mictlantecuhtli, the god of the dead
and ruler of the Underworld, was often
depicted as a skeleton. To placate him,
the Aztecs are said to have practiced
both human sacrifice and cannibalism.THE AMERICAS
Blood and sacrifice
Sacrifice was the central feature of
Aztec religion, as it was how man
repaid the gods for their actions.
The letting of blood was an
important act that Aztec priests
often carried out on themselves.
They drew blood by stabbing
themselves with thorns or
stingray spines in the cheeks,
arms, legs, and even penis.
The Aztecs also practiced
human sacrifice in order to
appease the gods—both of their
own people, and enemy prisoners
of war. The most common methodof sacrifice was to pull out the
victim's heart. The process was
carried out on an altar at the top
of a temple, where the victim
was held down by four men
while a specially trained priest
plunged a flint knife into the
ribs, allowing the heart to be
extracted. In each 18-month
"cycle," Aztec priests would
sacrifice one person in this
manner each month. They
sacrificed thousands of people
each year, also killing them
through gladiatorial combat,
drowning, decapitation,
burning, and burying alive.Women and children, as well as
conquered warriors, were among the
victims sacrificed by the Aztecs to
propitiate the gods.the present race of humans, whose
first woman and man were called
Oxomoco and Cipactonal.Feeding the new world
The newly created human race
needed food. Quetzalcoatl spotted a
red ant carrying a maize kernel. He
followed it until it disappeared into
a crack in a mountain—Mount
Popocatépetl, the mountain of
sustenance. Quetzalcoatl was so
curious about what lay within that
he transformed himself into a black
ant and crawled through the narrow
opening. There he found a chamber
filled with seeds and grain.
It was clear to Quetzalcoatl that
this mountain had the potential to
feed humans if they could only get
inside it. The god tried to lift it with
ropes but was unable to break it
open. He asked Oxomoco and
Cipactonal, who had the ability to
divine the future, what to do. They
told him that Nanahuatzin—a
humble and sickly god, whose
name meant “full of sores”—was
destined to help him. Nanahuatzin
was duly called forth to the food
mountain. There, with the help of
rain and lightning gods, he split it
open. The contents were thenscattered across the world,
providing nourishment for the
human race.The quest for happiness
The gods were happy that the
humans had food, which gave
them the strength to work, but
Quetzalcoatl noticed that their
lives were joyless. He decided that
humans needed something that
would bring them excitement and
happiness, and make them dance
and sing. He went on a journey
across the heavens to find a
solution and met a beautiful
goddess called Mayahuel. They fell
madly in love. To show their deep
affection for each other, they came
down to Earth and transformed
themselves into a single tree, each
becoming one of its two branches.
Mayahuel’s grandmother was
one of the Tzitzimimeh, a nocturnal
group of skeletal fertility goddesses.
Furious that her granddaughter had
run off with Quetzalcoatl, thegoddess descended with the other
Tzitzimimeh from their celestial
home to Earth to find Mayahuel.
When they discovered the tree, ❯❯US_248-255_Sun_in_Sky.indd 253 05/12/17 4:16 pm