The land that we now know as Mexico used to be home to the Aztecs until the Spanish conquest of the sixteenth century. Like so many other peoples, there are a lot of myths and legends associated with the Aztecs. In this article we’ll look at a few of the most fascinating aspects of these.

One element of Aztec culture that is interesting is that some of the deities that they chose to worship had been the gods of nations whom they, the Aztecs, had conquered. One of the Aztecs main gods, Quetzalcoatl, for example, had been of Toltec origin. It might seem an odd approach but, to a superstitious people, I guess they saw it as covering themselves just in case the conquered nations’ gods chose to seek retribution!

Another interesting phenomenon is the fact that they ordered the various deities into four quarters representing North, East, South and West. They saw the north as the dwelling place of Tezcatlipoca, whilst the south was inhabited by Huitzilopochtli, the east by Tonatiuh and the west by Quetzalcoatl.

Let’s look now at a couple of these main deities.

Huitzilopochtli was also known as He of the south or as the humming bird of the south. A humming bird might seem like a strange animal to be associated with a god, and perhaps more so when we hear that Huitzilopochtli was the god of war! He was also a storm god and his worship included the making of human sacrifices. Huitzilopochtli had blue armour and humming bird feathers and held a blue javelin in his left hand. Having been born, Huitzilopochtli killed his sister and others who had been plotting against his mother. Now that sounds a bit more like a god of war and shows that family life can be complicated in the world of gods!

Tezcatlipoca was another Aztec god who would attract a good score in scrabble and was the Sun god. He was also a god of music and dance, so I guess can be seen as being associated with the good things in life. If you were at an Aztec party, dancing and listening to music, there was every chance that he could have been right there despite you being oblivious to the fact. The reason is that he was invisible, although he sometimes appeared to people as either a flying shadow or a jaguar. He was also considered to wander at night in the shape of a giant. If you could capture this giant and hold him until dawn then great wealth and invincible power would be ensured.

The Aztecs also made human sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca (any excuse, eh?) but I particularly like the story of the annual sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca. It is said that, every year, the Aztecs would choose the handsomest of their prisoners who would come to personify the great Sun god. He would be taught to sing and play the lute and would be lavishly dressed and attended to. Twenty days before the sacrifice date, the prisoner would be given four young women as wives and so would begin a series of dances and festivals. At the end of which the newly-wed husband would have his heart cut out by an Aztec priest!

It is extremely interesting to read about the myths, legends and spiritual beliefs of earlier peoples, such as the Aztecs. These beliefs played a hugely important role in the fabric of Aztec society. Some of the beliefs, and rituals associated with them, may now be looked at as absurd and barbaric, however that is to judge them with our twenty-first century perspectives. Who knows what people four or five hundred years from now may make of our religious and spiritual beliefs? The other thing that the Aztec experience demonstrates is that it is the beliefs of the victorious that persist although aspects of defeated cultures may become interwoven or adopted by the victors.

Sources

New Larousse encyclopedia of mythology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztecs#Mythology_and_religion