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Meso-American
Religion
The Aztecs
 The Aztecs
 were influenced by the Toltecs to build their own civilization
 Were a great civilization with a population of about fifteen million
 Were urban (not villagers)- living in the city of Tenochtitlan (like the Yoruba
in Ife)
 Now Mexico City
 Their religion predates Catholicism
 Came to Mesoamerica with the Spaniards in the 16th century
 Mesoamerica included most of present-day Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, and
Costa Rica
Aztec God:
Quetzalcoatl
 Aka feathered
serpent
 Worshiped in
the city of
Teotihuacan
 Creator & ordermaker of
universe
Aztec goddess: Tonantzin
 Mother goddess
 Worshipped at a
mountain outside
Tenochtitlan
Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl
 The god’s earthly devotee
 Ruled as priest-king
 Disappeared but will return
one day
Important cities
 Teotihuacan
 Tenochtitlan
 Today known for its
 Aztec Capital
 Contained Great Temple
of Feathered Serpent
 Axis Mundi for Aztecs
 Now known as Mexico
City
monumental pyramid of the
Sun and the Pyramid of the
Moon
 Located 30 miles northeast of
the capital city
 Place of origins
 The gods gathered here to
create the world
4 directions & the Axis Mundi
 Center of the universe= axis
mundi
 Has four quadrants
extending outward from the
center connecting the earthly
realm to the heavenly realm
above and the underworld
below
 A cave was built in
Teotihuacan representing the
axis mundi
 At the point where the four
directions met stood the
Great Temple
 Known as Serpent
Mountain
 A mountain usually
represents the axis mundi
for primal traditions
The Sun
 The sun was created at
Teotihuacan
 The sun has its own age
 Four suns and their ages had
already been destroyed
 The 5th sun, present sun, faces
a similar fate
 The last that would ever
shine
 The only way of delaying the
end of the age was to nourish
the sun continually through
human sacrifice
Human nature
 Two divine forces nurtured
the human being with basic
needs
 One concentrated in the
head
 Another in the heart
 These two divine forces make
each human being a sort of
axis mundi- connecting the
earthly realm to the divine
 The human head and heart
were regarded as potent
nourishment for the sun and
the cosmos itself
Rituals: human
sacrifice
 A warrior – wishing to offer himself
as the sacrifice for the fragile cosmos


He will enter the highest heaven
upon death
the priest leads the ritual
The warrior has to lay on the
sacrificial stone
 The priest cuts open his breast,
seized his heart, and raised it as an
offering to the sun

 The heart was offered as
nourishment to the sun

It possessed divine force
 The head was offered to the sky
 The body – was not rolled, was
lowered by four men
 This ritual was performed every 20
days
 Victims – captive warriors

Some victims were slaves- rarely
women and children
Language
 In addition to human
sacrifice, the Aztec culture
provided its people with
other means for fulfilling
religious needs, such as
language
 The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl
 Specialists called knowers
of things communicated
with the gods through
language providing an
alternative to sacrifice

Wit
 the Aztecs also favored wit
 Employing riddles in their
ordinary speaking
 Knowing the answer to
riddles meant that one came
from a good family
 Example: “What is that
which we enter in three
places [and] leave by only
one?
The Fall
 The fall of Tenochtitlan was
due to one of the Aztec myths
 The belief that Topiltzin was
going to return around 1519
 Hernan Cortes arrived in
Mesoamerica in 1519 wearing
a feathered helmet
 The Aztec king- known as
Moctezuma II confused
Hernan Cortes with Topiltzin
Quetzalcoatl
 Welcomed him with gifts
 Hernan Cortes destroyed
Tenochtitlan
 The popular veneration of the
Virgin of Guadalupe began in
1531 when a dark-skinned
apparition of the Virgin Mary
appeared to an Aztec convert
to Catholicism named Juan
Diego.
 The hill on which she
appeared was considered the
sacred place of the Aztec
mother goddess Tonantzin
 Mexican Indians today
continue to refer to the Virgin
Mary as Tonantzin
Dia de los Muertos
 The popular Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, shows the
survival of Aztec religious culture.
 This celebration joins the living and the dead through rituals
that are both festive and spiritually meaningful