Aztec (still spoken by nearly three million Mexicans), the
word for city is altepetl. Its literal translation is “water moun-
tain,” and it describes the central ceremonial temple that de-
fined the city. Mountains were thought to be containers of
water, which made its way from the sea. Tlaloc oversaw the
circulation of water through the earth; therefore, human be-
ings propitiated him so that he would release just the right
amount of water.
Ritual descriptions emphasized the relationship of the
human body and the earth. Both objects were understood
to simultaneously be containers of, and surrounded by, liq-
uid. Human flesh was a container for blood, which was un-
derstood as a living fluid. During gestation, the human body
was surrounded by amniotic fluid. These material aspects of
human existence mirrored the Aztec’s understanding of their
living landscape. Thus, they would perform healing prac-
tices, divinatory activity of various sorts, and rituals sur-
rounding childbirth and child-rearing at particular places,
where Tlaloc could receive the gifts of human beings.
The material makeup of the human body corresponded
with the material makeup of land. Thus Tlaloc, although a
rain deity, was also understood to be Tlalteuctli—the “earth
lord.” His body was likened to that of the crocodile: the
ridges of his back were associated with the mountains and
ravines, and he was said to float on the primordial saltwater
sea. The Tlaloques were “rain dwarfs”; namely, lesser deities
associated with various climatological phenomena such as
snow, sleet, and lightning.
Tlaloc needed to eat. The ceremonial relationship be-
tween human beings and the Tlaloques was primarily based
on food exchange. Rain was essential for the development of
agriculture in Mesoamerica. In particular, the development
of maize cultivation over several thousand years had become
the basis for urban culture. Consequently, the Aztec per-
formed ritual strategies for propitiating the rain deities so
that they would release adequate amounts of moisture for ag-
ricultural bounty. Human beings grew and prospered due to
the interaction of earth and water on Tlaloc’s body. The
Aztec believed that the flesh and blood of human beings,
given to Tlaloc through human sacrifice, sustained and re-
generated his body. Thus, Tlaloc and the Aztec were in an
intimate, reciprocal relationship.
Ceremonial temples, or altepetl, were openings to the
watery dwelling of the deities.Yet human existence was un-
derstood to materially depend on this hidden world of Tlalo-
can (“the place of Tlaloc”). Ritual activities performed at
these places brought human beings into intimate contact
with the entire cosmos. Material elements such as earth,
water, air, human flesh and blood, trees, and various kinds
of animals were understood to be in dynamic interaction
with each other.
Since Tlaloc was seen as a living embodiment of the
land, whose primary duty was to control the circulation of
water both inside and above the earthly plane, the title of
“rain deity” is an insufficient description. Attempting to de-
scribe the dynamic nature of the ceremonial interactions be-
tween the Aztec and Tlaloc as a feeding relationship, one
scholar has referred to the mythic world of the Aztec as an
“eating landscape.”SEE ALSO Aztec Religion; Cosmology, article on Indigenous
North and Mesoamerican Cosmologies; Mesoamerican Reli-
gions, article on Formative Cultures.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arnold, Philip P. Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupa-
tion of Tlalocan. Niwot, Colo., 1999. Discusses the impor-
tance of fertility rites for the Aztec and describes how they
meaningfully inhabited their material world.
Broda, Johanna. “Las fiestas Aztecas de los dioses de la luvia: Una
reconstruccíon según las fuentes del siglo XVI.” Revista Espa-
ñola de Antropología Americana 6 (1971): 245–327. Presents
a comprehensive outline of rain and fertility gods as de-
scribed in early colonial sources.
Nicholson, H.B. “Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico.” In
Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 10, Archaeology
of Northern Mesoamerica, edited by Gordon F. Eckhom and
Ignacio Bernal, pp. 395–446. Austin, Tex., 1971. This im-
portant article on deities of the Aztec includes a lengthy sec-
tion on Tlaloc and the Tlaloques.
Sandstrom, Alan R. Corn Is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity
in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village. Norman, Okla.,- Sandstrom describes the contemporary understanding
of Tlaloc among Nahuatl-speaking people.
PHILIP P. ARNOLD (2005)
TLAXCALAN RELIGION. What is in the early
twenty-first century the Mexican state of Tlaxcala occupies
roughly the same territory as the old pre-Hispanic Tlaxcalan
confederacy, an alliance of several indigenous principalities
independent of the so-called Aztec empire. Its inhabitants
were Nahuatl-speaking Indians, and they were the main al-
lies of Hernán Cortés in the Spanish conquest of Mexico
from 1519 to 1522. Present-day Tlaxcala is located on the
western fringes of the central Mexican highlands. It is the
smallest state in the nation, with a population of slightly
more than 600,000. Although less than 15 percent of the
population still speaks Nahuatl, the ethnic and somatic com-
position of Tlaxcala is predominantly Indian, and there per-
sists a strong identification with the Indian past.
PRE-HISPANIC BACKGROUND. When the Spaniards arrived
in Mexico in 1519 they found a polytheistic religion wide-
spread throughout the area that in the twentieth century
came to be known archaeologically and ethnologically as Me-
soamerica. Mesoamerica exhibited a rather high degree of
cultural uniformity, and in no cultural domain was this more
true than in the realm of religion. Thus, Tlaxcalan polythe-
ism was a variant of a pan-Mesoamerican religion, minimally
different from, say, Méxica-Aztec, Huastec, Tarascan, Za-
potec, or even Maya polytheism.9214 TLAXCALAN RELIGION