Shaun P. McGonigal

History of the Aztecs

4/19/99

Origins:

Where mythology meets history in the valley of Mexico

 

           

Mythology is true.  That is what the science of Anthropology tells us about the stories passed down through oral or written transmission.  What this means is that the traditional stories that a culture passes down through the generations are true within that culture.  Often mythology is based on historical events that have been corrupted over time and space and turned into gross generalizations and other times it is just good stories.  The history and mythology that I will be discussing in this paper will be based on the Legend of the Suns mythology and the Aztec, or Mexica, southward migration that brought them into the valley of Mexico.  I will begin with the Legend of the Suns, from the Codex Chimalpopoca and continue with the quasi-historical travels of the Mexica from their home of origin—Aztlan—into the valley and the rise to power that ensued in the 15th century.  The Mexica were related to, yet likely distinct from, the Chichimec tribes from the Legendary Chicomoztoc (7 caves).  I will briefly explore the relationship between the Mexicas and the Chichimecs and explore the Mexicas’ ascension to control over most of the Valley of Mexico.

            The Codex Chimalpopoca is broken up into two books; The Annals of Cuauhtitlan and the Legend of the Suns.  The Annals of Cuauhtitlan is a chronology of events that includes movements of different tribes, foundations of cities, and reigns of rulers.  The Legend of the Suns is the documentation of a primarily Chichimec myth that describes the creation and subsequent destruction of the four suns prior to the current sun.  Some parallels can be found between the two; there is a point at which the Annals pick up with where the Legend leaves off and others where they describe the same events with varying details.

 

The Five Suns           

One problem is that the Legend of the Suns and the Annals of Cuauhtitlan both discuss the five suns but the differences in the accounts are significant.  The events that occur are similar, but differ in chronology and detail. The Legend of the Suns is a long description of the mythology (beginning on page 142 of the codex) where the Annals of Cuauhtitlan only briefly discusses the five suns on page 25 and 26 of John Biernhorst’s translation.  The Annals is primarily a historical document sprinkled with mythology where the Legend is mythology that contains hints of historical truth.  All together the codex Chimalpopoca is a contrast of mythology and history, hence the title of Biernhorst’s translation; History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca. 

Biernhorst summarizes some of the mythology that is in the text on page 8 of the introduction of the codex,.  He points out that the text says that it will reveal “‘how the earth was established,’” but further points out that this is not achieved in this codex at all.  A similar text, referred to as the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas (which I will refer to as the “Historia”), tells of the earth being created from the “body of a reptilian monster” (Biernhorst, 8).  At this point, earth having been established, Tezcatlipoca becomes the first sun.  The Legend tells us that “[t]his “sun was 4 Jaguar” (meaning, I assume, its day sign of creation).  This sun lasted for 676 years and was destroyed after 13 years of people getting eaten by jaguars.  There is also some mention, in the “Historia,” of there being “giants” on the earth at this time (reminding me of the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 and makes me wonder what influence the Spanish may have had in this codex).  The Annals argues that the first sun was the “water sun” instead of the jaguar sun (in the Legend, the water sun is the 4th sun).  The Annals say that under this first sun, the people were swept away by water and turned into dragonfly nymphs and fish. 

Being the first sun, it is important to me that I attach a date to when the mythology begins—when was the first sun believed to have been created.  In the “Preamble” on page 142 the Legend tells us that “[t]here are 2513 years today, on the 22nd day of May, 1558” (probably when this codex was written).  This information implies that the first sun was created in 955 BCE, a much different date that is attributed to the beginning of the calendar, which probably began being counted around 3013 BCE.  It is safe to conclude that the source of the mythology of the five suns probably had no contact with the Mayans and their calendar otherwise we might see a much earlier date for the creation of the first sun (unless people lived without a sun for over 2000 years).  

            The first sun was knocked out of the sky by Quetzalcoatl, according to the “Historia”, and took its place as the “wind sun.”  The Legend states that this sun was supposed to have lasted 364 years after which the sun was blown away by wind and destroyed.  It seems to me that this story either contains a historical memory of an ancient hurricane or is just meant to symbolize the importance and fear in any hurricane.  Contradicting the Legend, the Annals lists the second sun as the jaguar sun (as the Legend does for the first), but adds that the sky collapsed bringing darkness.  Similarly, there is mention of the giants that inhabited the world at that time.  It was said that people were told “don’t fall,” the fear being that they might not be able to get back up if they did (Biernhorst, 26).

            The third sun is the same for all of the sources that I have seen; the “rain sun.”  The Legend tells of this sun lasting for 312 years.  The “Historia” mentioned earlier identifies the third sun with the rain god Tlalocaneuctli (Tlaloc).  All the sources mention the rain of fire that destroyed the people as well as the sun but the Annals adds the presence of gravel, lava stones boiling, and the depositing of red rocks (Biernhorst, 26).  To me this seems to be implying volcanic activity—perhaps a volcanic mountain exploding and destroying some villages and blocking out the sun for a while.

The Legend identifies the fourth sun as the water sun (which had been the first sun for the Annals) which is reported to have lasted for 676 years.  Tlaloc is forced out of the sky so his wife, Chalchiuhtlicue, takes his place as the new sun says the “Historia.”  The sky fell causing the world to flood, destroying the sun, and bringing darkness.  For the Annals the fourth sun is the wind sun that we saw as the second sun of the Legend but the Annals adds to the wind sun that the people were turned into monkeys (due to the wind?). 

Here a date is supplied to the creation of one of the mythological suns, this time directly, by the Annals.   The fourth sun was created in the year 8 Rabbit, 694 CE, which in light of the dates given earlier (955 BCE as the creation of the first sun, and the time periods for the consecutive suns—676, 364, and 312 years) we should be at the year 397 or so. We must remember that these myths were written from memory from the most part, any written version of them having most likely been destroyed by the Conquistadors.   Therefore we must not attribute too much reliability to these dates.  The codices “may have been manipulated by the post-conquest historians” (Biernhorst, 2) but what is even more significant is that even those documents that the Codex Chimalpopoca was transmitted from were not the originals.  It seems that the Aztecs rewrote some of their history to correct the “false” histories within.

But the fourth sun is of most interest because of the transition to the fifth sun; the flood myth.  According to the Legend, the flood lasted for 52 years (also the period of time that it took for the calendars to complete their consecutive cycles).  Supposedly, before the flood, the god Titlacahuan told the man Tata and his wife Nene to “‘put aside your cares.  Hollow out a big cypress, and when it’s Tozotli [April] and the skies come falling down, get inside’” (Biernhorst 143).  Besides the indirect reference to “April showers” there is also a startling similarity, once again, to Genesis.  Who is to say that Tata is not Noah, and the cypress the ark?  (Spanish influence?).  It is worthy of noting that during the first 25 years of the flood (and beginning with it) that it was dark because the sun was destroyed.  The creation of the fifth sun, and the mythology that describes it, occurred while Tata and Nene are in the cypress floating around because the world was flooded.  

            What occurs in the creation of the 5th sun, as it is described beginning on page 148 of Bierhorst’s translation, is that the gods convene at Teotihuacan (which should be covered in water) and invite Nanahuatl to become the sun.  After going through a ceremony that includes him fasting and bathing, Nanahuatl and the moon jump into the “spirit oven” (Biernhorst, 147) but the moon only lands in the ashes (thus being less luminous).  But when Nanahuatl reached the sky he refused to move for four days.  Quite simply, the sun wouldn’t move because it wanted the blood of sacrificial victims. 

            Back to Tata and Nene who are still in the cypress.  The new sun was created on the twenty-sixth year of their journey in the tree, and eventually they would run aground.  Having done so, they caught some fish and began to cook them.  Seeing the smoke in the sky from the fire the gods get angry and Tezcatlipoca comes down to them and asked what they were doing.  “Then he cut off their heads and stuck them on their rumps, and that way they were turned into dogs” (Biernhorst, 144).   The significance to this is visible in light of the etymology of the word Chichimec.  According to Aztec.net, this word means “barbarian” but I am much more interested in the etymological origin of the word which, according to Britannica Online, can be translated to “Sons of the Dog.”  What this may imply is that Tata and Nene are the ancestors of the Chichimecs that are so often associated with the Mexicas. 

 

The Migration      

The Annals of Cuauhtitlan focus primarily on the migration of the Chichimecs and Mexicas.  Essentially what occurred in the Valley of Mexico, or Anahuac as it is known as in Nahuatl, before and during the invasion of the Chichimecs was the collapse of the Toltecs in Tollan, or Tula, and the creation of a power vacuum in the area.  As Richard Adams states in his book Prehistoric Mesoamerica the Toltecs managed to spread out bringing aspects of their culture with them.  Some of them stayed in the valley and meshed with other people who were settling, and others moved as far away as Chichen Itza in the Yucatan.  What is uncertain to historians is the date of Tula’s fall.  Adams insists that the Tollans experienced pressure from invading Chichimecs in the 12th century and were overthrown in the year 1156 CE.  Britannic online agrees with Adams but Nigel Davies does not.  Davies, the author of The Toltec Heritage, gives a date of 1175 CE for Tollan’s collapse.  The most detailed chronology given concerning the events surrounding Tula’s demise is contained within the Annals but as I have mentioned before the accuracy of this information may not be very reliable.

            The migration of the Chichimecs is put in a historical context but is colored with mythology.  According to the Legend, the Mixtecs, led by Mixcoatl, began their migration shortly after the fifth sun was established.  The sun, Nanahuatl, had created 400 Mixcoa plus five other in a cave (Chicomoztoc).  The 400 were given darts for the implied use of bloodletting (remember its refusal to move) as the sun commanded them; “‘Here is how you will give me a drink’” (Biernhorst, 150).  But they were disobedient so the sun ordered the five to wage war on the 400.  The battle ends in the sun getting his drink of blood and the survivors settling outside of the cave and home of the Mixcoa; Chicomoztoc.

Mixcoatl leads the survivors on a conquest that takes them south towards the Valley of Mexico.  Mixcoatl was the father of Tipiltzin-Quetzalcoatl who was a Toltec leader and who, in the Legend, is credited with leading the Toltecs out of Teotihuacan and into Tollan.  This account appears to be a severely oversimplified version of the events reported in the Annals.  It seems that several generations of events are attributed to two in the Legend’s account.

What about the Aztecs? Aztlan is the legendary homeland of the Aztecs, and loosely translates to “the place of Whiteness” but literally translates to “place of the tooth” (www.azteca.net/aztec/ aztlan.html).  The Codex Boturini illustrates the migration itself as beginning on an island with six houses and a temple.  The implication is that the Mexica were civilized before they entered the Valley of Mexico; this just is not true.  The Chichimecs were nomads who had little to no knowledge of a ‘civilized’ way of life before their interaction with the Toltec culture.  Nigel Davies describes the Chichimec in terms of being “complete with skins and cave dwellings” and the evolution they went through while living among the civilized Toltec descendants as being “from rags to riches”  (The Toltec Heritage, 85).   It seems that this codex is another example of the Aztecs changing history to give more validity to their control.  I suppose the Aztecs didn’t want to look like a bunch of cave-dwelling barbarians who took the reigns of an already advanced culture created by the Toltecs.  An usurper never carries much legitimate authority from the point of view of the ruled. 

            As I have shown above the dates that are given for the creation of the fourth sun in the Legend was calculated around 397 CE and the fourth sun was supposedly in the sky for 676 years.  This brings us into the 11th century or so for the creation of the fifth sun.  As I have already shown, the Mixtecs—who are associated with the Chichimecs and therefore the Mexica—began their migration shortly after the creation of the fifth sun (which may still been the time of the flood).  The Annals begin the chronology of the Chichimec story around when I left off with the 400 Mixcoa at Chicomoztoc.  The Mexican migration, when they leave Aztlan, is reported to begin in the year 1090 CE.  This seems to fit very well but let’s see how the facts unfold.

On page 23 of Biernhorst’s translation the god Itzpapalotl begins the text of the Annals by speaking to the Chichimecs.  In the second line, she says to them; “‘Shoot to the south, to the southlands, the garden lands, the flower lands” which seems to be implying the Valley of Mexico.  There is mention here of 400 Mixcoa along with the Chichimecs;  “And when the Chichimecs come, the Mixcoa, the four hundred Mixcoa, are in the lead.  That’s how they issue forth from Chiucnauhtilihuican [Nine Hills], from Chiucnauhixtlahuatl [Nine fields, i.e., the underworld]” (Biernhorst, 23). Itzpapalotl eats the Mixcoa (except for Mixcoatl who hides in a “barrel cactus”) and he shoots her with help from the 400 dead Mixcoa who are summoned back by the god herself.  Then they burn her and shortly after the beginning of the year count begins.  The contradiction here is minor as far as the events are concerned but all of this is supposed to occur, according to the Annals, in the year 634 CE.  The next year, 635, “the Chichimecs came out of Chicomoztoc [Seven Caves]” (Biernhorst, 24).  This is the same cave (at least in anme) that the five Mixcoatl were created in after the creation of the fifth sun.  But in light of all of the information in front of us we must conclude that at least one of the accounts of the Chichimecs (or Mixcoa) leaving Chicomoztoc is false—at least in date.  If the Legend’s account is true (as far as the date is concerned), then the Chichimecs began their migration around the same time as the Annals says the Mexica left Aztlan (the 11th century) but the Annals say that the Chichimecs leave their place of origin in the 7th century. 

To make matters worse Nigel Davies insists that the Mexica didn’t leave from Aztlan until significantly later than 1090.   Davies associates the Mexica with Xolotl and the Chichimecs who, after witnessing the fall of Tula in 1175, “like wolves upon the fold, descendent upon the Valley of Mexico” (Davies, 42).  Davies states that the Chichimecs left Chicomoztoc a few years after the fall of Tollan and arrived there in 5 Tecpatl or, According to the Anales de Tlatelolco, 12 Acatl that could translate into many dates in the Julian calendar because the Mexican calendar is cyclical.  But because Davies has faith in the date of 1175 for the fall of Tula, he accepts the 5 Tecpatl equivalent of 1179 (or the 12 Acatl equivalent of 1186) for the Mexica arriving in Chapoltepec.  

            The Codex Boturini tells of the Mexica god Huitzilopochtli, meaning ‘Hummingbird of the left’ or ‘south,’ leading the Mexica to Mexico from Aztlan.  We are not sure where Aztlan was, but one good theory is that it was the “present town of San Felipe Aztlan, Nayarit” (azteca.net).  Nigel Davies thinks that the search for the location of Aztlan “is an unrewarding task” (Davies, 25) because the documentation concerning it is so confused and contradictory.  As Inga Clendinnen relates the story to us in her book, Aztecs: An Interpretation, on page 22 the “Mexica’s distinctive history had begun at Aztlan” which was an island in a lake (much like Tenochtitlan).  Reaching the shore of the lake by canoe the Mexica began their migration “faithfully following the sacred medicine bundle which was their god Huitzilopochtli . . . In times of crisis he would speak to his priests in his fast-twittering voice, giving instructions” (Clendinnen, 22).  They paused briefly at Culhuacan (“Curved Mountain”) and shortly after the group “disputed and divided” and the “Mexica” continued with Huitzilopochtli, implying that the others were no longer considered Mexica. 

One interpretation of this is that the factions that split off from the Mexica were the Chichimecs.  Clendinnen points out that at some distant past the Mexica were reported by some sources to have left Chicomoztoc, the same origin as the Chichimecs.  Perhaps Chicomoztoc was the origin of the Chichimecs, including the Mexica, and both lived at Aztlan (or perhaps Aztlan was the political center of Chichimecland).  Later, the distinction would be drawn when the groups divided or, at least, when the Aztecs recorded the history of their wanderings.  Nigel Davies as well as the Annals point out that the Mexicas had a good relationship with many of the Chichimec tribes. 

            The Annals reports a rather detailed migration of the Mexicas out of Aztlan.  The Chichimecs were supposed to have left Chicomoztoc around 635 CE (but probably much later) and sometime after then (or perhaps before) the Mexicas were settled at Aztlan.  In 1090 CE the Mexicas leave Aztlan and reach a place called Cuahuitlicacan the next year (no mention of Culhuacan here).  They keep moving from place to place until they reach Tollan in 1146 CE.  In 1155 the Mexica arrive in Cuautitlan (where the Annals are written) and eventual reach Chapoltepec in 1194.   Perhaps this chronology is not so far from historical truth because Nigel Davies reports that the Mexicas reached Chapoltepec in 1319.  Out of the two dates—1194 and 1319—I would rely more on the latter because Davies is using more sources, including archaeological, than is evident that the author of the Annals had at his disposal.  It seems, therefore, that it is most likely that the Mexicas were in the region of Anahuac by the 14th century, if not earlier. 

            By this time the Toltecs of Tollan have probably already lost their power in the Valley of Mexico, and the city of Culhuacan is trying to perpetuate Toltec influence under their control.  The Alcolhuas of Tezcoco eventually came out on top of the pile but were to be succeeded by the Tepanecs in the 15th century says “Origins of Mexico” at www.azteca.net. What we are sure of is that there is a struggle to gain power in the region and the Mexica insert themselves into the competition very well. 

            In the 15th century the Mexicas established Tenochtitlan as a power to reckon with.  The most accepted date for the establishment of Tenochtitlan is 1325.  Some scholars disagree but it is clear that sometime in the first half of the 14th century the Mexicas settled on the island in the middle of Lake Texcoco.  The Codex Boturini, which I began summarizing above, continues with Huitzilopochtli telling the wandering Mexicas to settle at the place where they see an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its talons or beak and bones on the ground surrounding the cactus.  Some documents insist that when the Mexicas were forced to settle on the island that would become Tenochtitlan this, or something similar, is what they did see and obediently built a temple to Huitzilopochtli on that spot.  

            The claim to be a Toltec is something that becomes an issue here. 

The eagerness to assume the mantle of Tollan was not confined to the Mexicas, and peoples of remoter regions were just as ready to claim descent from a city-state endowed by legend with a vast empire and posthumously famed as a great center of art and learning (Davies, 9). 

 

The Toltecs were still around in some fragmentary form or another.  The culture that was known as Toltec was to be associated with any skilled artisan in 15th and 16th century Mexico.   That the Aztecs were related to the Toltecs is likely.  They very well may have intermarried with remaining Toltecs and thus there exists a descent relationship but the most significant relationship concerns the adoption of the Toltec culture.  The Aztecs aspired to be like the Toltecs so they imitated their culture thus in some way did become Toltec.

            By 1400 the Mexicas had established their city in the lake of Tenochtitlan.  The other Chichimec tribes and remnants of Toltec power had either been assimilated by the Mexica and their alliance or were dead for the most part by the start of the 16th century.  But the power that the Mexicas had achieved after so much wandering and struggling would not be appreciated for very long because the Spanish were coming.

 

Works Cited

 

Adams, Richard E.W. Prehistoric Mesoamerica.  Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

     1991.

Clendinnen, Inga.  Aztecs: An Interpretation.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

     1991.

Davies, Nigel.  The Toltec Heritage: From the Fall of Tula to the Rise of Tenochtitlan.    

     Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980.

History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca.  Trans. John Biernhorst.

     Tuscan: The University of Arizona Press, 1992.

“History of Mexico: The Aztecs.”  Britannica Online.  April 1999.

“Origins of Mexico.”  http://www.azteca.com.  Feb. 16, 1999.

“What is the Meaning of the word Aztlan.” http://www.azteca.com.  Feb. 16, 1999.