The Aztec Myths (Myths)
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How did the jaguar get his spots? What happened to the four suns that came before our own? Where was Aztlan, mythical homeland of the Aztecs?
For decades, the popular image of the Mexica people – better known today as the Aztecs – has been defined by the Spaniards who conquered them. Their salacious stories of pet snakes, human sacrifice and towering skull racks have masked a complex world of religious belief.
To reveal the rich mythic tapestry of the Aztecs, Camilla Townsend returns to the original tales, told at the fireside by generations of Indigenous Nahuatl-speakers. Through their voices we learn the contested histories of the Mexica and their neighbours in the Valley of Mexico – the foundations of great cities, the making and breaking of political alliances, the meddling of sometimes bloodthirsty gods – and understand more clearly how they saw their world and their place in it. The divine principle of Ipalnemoani connected humans with all of nature and spiritual beliefs were woven through the fabric of Aztec life, from the sacred ministrations of the ticitl, midwives whose rituals saw women through childbirth, to the inevitable passage to Mictlan, ‘our place of disappearing together’ – the land of the dead.
Camilla Townsend is Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University and a vocal supporter of the rights of indigenous peoples She is the author of numerous books including iFifth Sun A New History of the Aztecsi which won the Cundill History Prize in 2020 Her other books include iMalintzins Choices An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexicoi iPocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemmai and iThe Annals of Native America How the Nahuas of Colonial Mexico Kept Their History Alivei
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