Like many peoples throughout the world, the ancient Aztecs held a cyclical view of life. Death was the inevitable result of life – part of an unbroken circle and one unified life force. When we are born, we emerge from the spirit world and return to it after death, just as crops die and are reborn each year. These two worlds – the apparent world of everyday life and the invisible spirit world where the gods resided and souls went – were connected through the world tree. The Aztec rulers and shamans were able to communicate with the other world through a number of rituals, including bloodletting (piercing the body with a thorned rope), religious dances, or ingesting sacred food and beverages. Human sacrifices were also sent to the spirit world to communicate with the gods.

Heaven, or Tamoanchan, according to Aztec beliefs, was a physical place located on earth but hidden from the living by a “mythical mountain.” It had 13 levels, and which level people would enter after death depended on how they had lived their lives and how they died. Warriors killed in battle went directly to the eastern paradise, or the house of the sun. Sacrifice victims and enemy soldiers also went to this paradise, where all souls remained for 4 years before returning to earth as exotic birds.

In the western paradise, or the house of corn were the souls of women who died in childbirth, and they might return to earth as spirits of bad omens. The southern paradise (Tlaloc) was for people who had died of illness or lightening.

Finally, all the rest of the dead went to the northern paradise, Mictlan, which required passage through the underworld. On this difficult journey, the soul faced a series of 9 trials (the levels of the underworld), which took 4 years to complete. The dead must (1) cross a deep river, with the aid of a dog, who was buried with the person; (2) pass between two joined mountains; (3) climb an obsidian mountain; (4) endure icy winds that cut them like knives and (5) a place with waving flags; (6) be pierced by arrows; (7) pass through wild animals that eat human hearts; and (8) cross a narrow stone path (9) to finally reach the place where souls find rest.

At burial, the dead were provided with the items they would need to successfully negotiate these trials, including a tawny-furred dog who could swim across the deep river, water, a jade bead to feed to the heart-eating beasts at the seventh level, and personal objects to present to the god of the dead (Michtlantecuhtli) and mistress of the underworld (Mictecacihuatl) as gifts when they arrived at the ninth level.

The Aztec civilization was an agricultural society, and human life was regarded in much the same way as the crops the Aztec people cultivated or the flowers that grew in the fields. Death was simply part of the natural order – man was born to die but carried the seeds of rebirth and reproduction.

Religious rituals were therefore focused more on ensuring health and fertility in earthly life than on the afterlife. Corn was sacrificed to the rain god, Tlaloc, to ensure good crops, and human sacrifices ensured the continuation and welfare of the people. All of life was continuous, cyclical, and interconnected.

Resources

http://www.river-styx.net/aztec-myth-mictlan.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/08aug/01185/after.html