CHAPTER 2 LATE POSTCLASSIC MESOAMERICA 99Aztec religion took on a life of its own and influenced developments within the
empire and the Mesoamerican world as a whole.
A rich source of information on the beliefs and practices of the Aztecs is the cor-
pus of pictorial documents that originated with the Nahutal-speaking peoples of
Central Mexico in the pre-Columbian and Early Colonial periods (see Chapter 6
and Figures 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4).
The central figure in the Aztec religion was Huitzilopochtli, the hero-deity of
the Mexica. The Huitzilopochtli (“humming bird on the left”) persona was melded
with the ancient Mesoamerican war and hunting gods, such as Tezcatlipoca (“smok-
ing mirror”) and Tonatiuh (“he who goes forth shining,” the sun), and so he was
thus moved to the center of the cosmos as patron of war and human sacrifice.
Huitzilopochtli thus symbolized the Aztecs’ responsibility for maintaining the life of
the Sun by feeding it sacrificial blood. The implication of this practice was that the
Aztecs were required to relentlessly take captives through warfare and to sacrifice
them before the gods in order to preserve the universe from the threat of cosmic de-
struction. Between A.D. 1428 and Spanish contact in 1519, these powerful ideas were
expressed in newly inscribed books, carved and painted in art works, and taught at
the elite schools (calmecac).
The myth of the solar struggle gave the Aztec peoples a religious orientation
that may have significantly differed from many of the other Mesoamerican states, at
least at first; it was a religious ideology that was manipulated to justify the Aztecs’ ag-
gressive military expansion. Political economic goals, such as outdoing other states
in the competition for tributes, marched in step with ideological goals, imbuing
Aztec warriors with the cosmic mission of winning sacrificial victims to feed the gods.
Virtually all aspects of Aztec religion helped serve the interests of the ruling class be-
cause imperial policy and sacred cosmology were thoroughly integrated. Major events,
such as important conquests or succession to the highest political offices, were draped
in the sacred trappings of the cosmos: Rulers dressed in the attire of deities, dancers
moving in the cosmic counterclockwise direction, and dates of political importance
identified with universal cycles of time, etc. Aztec religion, of course, expressed con-
cerns besides the political ones, but interests of the state were inevitably present in
every aspect of myth and ritual.
According to Aztec mythology, creation was a cyclic process, consisting of a se-
ries of periods, or “Suns,” each ending in destruction (Figure 2.15). The most re-
cent Sun was to end by earthquakes. Ometeuctli (“lord two”) and Omecihuatl (“lady
two”), the dualistic (male-female) creator couple, were said to have initiated cre-
ation by bringing forth four active deities associated with the cardinal directions:
Tezcatlipoca (north), Xipe Totec (east), Quetzalcoatl (west), and Huitzilopochtli
(south). These deities then created human beings and the other elements of the
world. Human sacrifice began when a lowly god with pustules (Nanahuatzin) cast
himself into the fire at Teotihuacan, followed by an arrogant rich god (Teccistecatl),
both then rising to the sky as Sun and Moon. They were given orbital movement by
the auto-sacrifices of the other gods and a strong wind provided by Ehecatl, the wind
god.