Mayahuel is the female deity associated with the maguey plant among cultures of central Mexico in the Postclassic era of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology, and in particular of the Aztec cultures. As the personification of the maguey plant, Mayahuel is also part of a complex of interrelated maternal and fertility goddesses in Aztec religion and is also connected with notions of fecundity and nourishment.
Chalchiuhtlicue is an Aztec deity of water, rivers, seas, streams, storms, and baptism. Chalchiuhtlicue is associated with fertility, and she is the patroness of childbirth. Chalchiuhtlicue was highly revered in Aztec culture at the time of the Spanish conquest, and she was an important deity figure in the Postclassic Aztec realm of central Mexico. Chalchiuhtlicue belongs to a larger group of Aztec rain gods, and she is closely related to another Aztec water god called Chalchiuhtlatonal.
In Aztec mythology, Tonacatecuhtli was a creator and fertility god, worshipped for populating the earth and making it fruitful. Most Colonial-era manuscripts equate him with Ōmetēcuhtli. His consort was Tonacacihuatl.
In Aztec religion, Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who presided over salt and salt water. The Aztecs considered her to be the older sister of the rain gods, including Tlaloc. Much of the information known about Huixtocihuatl and how the Aztecs celebrated her comes from Bernardino de Sahagún's manuscripts. His Florentine Codex explains how Huixtocihuatl became the salt god. It records that Huixtocihuatl angered her younger brothers by mocking them, so they banished her to the salt beds. It was there where she discovered salt and how it was created. As described in the second book of the Florentine Codex, during Tecuilhuitontli, the seventh month of the Aztec calendar, there was a festival in honor of Huixtocihuatl. The festival culminated with the sacrifice of Huixtocihuatl's ixiptla, the embodiment of the deity in human form.
Tonantzin is a Nahuatl title composed of to- "our" + nān "mother" + -tzin "(honorific suffix)". When addressing Tonantzin directly, men use the suffixed vocative form Tonāntziné [], and women use the unsuffixed vocative form Tonāntzín [].
Jaguar warriors or jaguar knights, ocēlōtlNahuatl pronunciation:[oˈseːloːt͡ɬ] (singular) or ocēlōmeh (plural) were members of the Aztec military elite. They were a type of Aztec warrior called a cuāuhocēlōtl (derived from cuāuhtli and ocēlōtl. They were an elite military unit similar to the eagle warriors.
Mexitli, Mexi, or Mezih was a legendary great leader and war priest of the Aztecs during the "wandering years" when they were a nomadic tribe. After wandering for 200 years, they settled on two islands on Lake Texcoco where, in 1325, they founded Tenochtitlan, what is now modern-day Mexico City. The Aztecs became known as the Mexica, possibly in Mexitli's honor. According to The Florentine Codex writer Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, the name derives from the Nahuatl metl (Agave) and zitli (Hare). See, also, Mexico, Aztecs and History of the Aztecs.
Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain. Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529. He learned Nahuatl and spent more than 50 years in the study of Aztec beliefs, culture and history. Though he was primarily devoted to his missionary task, his extraordinary work documenting indigenous worldview and culture has earned him the title as “the first anthropologist." He also contributed to the description of Nahuatl, the imperial language of the Aztec Empire. He translated the Psalms, the Gospels, and a catechism into Nahuatl.
Pozole is a traditional soup or stew from Mexican cuisine. It is made from hominy with meat, and can be seasoned and garnished with shredded lettuce or cabbage, chili peppers, onion, garlic, radishes, avocado, salsa or limes. Known in Mesoamerica since the pre-Columbian era, the stew is common across Mexico and neighboring countries, served both as a day-to-day meal and as a festive dish.
The ancient Aztecs employed a variety of entheogenic plants and animals within their society. The various species have been identified through their depiction on murals, vases, and other objects.
The Anales de Tlatelolco is a codex manuscript written in Nahuatl, using Latin characters, by anonymous Aztec authors. The text has no pictorial content. Although there is an assertion that the text was a copy of one written in 1528 in Tlatelolco, only seven years after the fall of the Aztec Empire, James Lockhart argues that there is no evidence for this early date of composition, based on internal evidence of the text. However, he supports the contention that this is an authentic conquest account, arguing that it was composed about 20 years after the conquest in the 1540s, and contemporaneous with the Cuernavaca censuses. Unlike the Florentine Codex and its account of the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Annals of Tlatelolco remained in Nahua hands, providing authentic insight into the thoughts and outlook of the newly conquered Nahuas.
The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España. After a translation mistake, it was given the name Historia general de las Cosas de Nueva España. The best-preserved manuscript is commonly referred to as the Florentine Codex, as the codex is held in the Laurentian Library of Florence, Italy.
Human sacrifice was common in many parts of Mesoamerica, so the rite was nothing new to the Aztecs when they arrived at the Valley of Mexico, nor was it something unique to pre-Columbian Mexico. Other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Purépechas and Toltecs, and the Maya performed sacrifices as well and from archaeological evidence, it probably existed since the time of the Olmecs, and perhaps even throughout the early farming cultures of the region. However, the extent of human sacrifice is unknown among several Mesoamerican civilizations. What distinguished Aztec practice from Maya human sacrifice was the way in which it was embedded in everyday life. These cultures also notably sacrificed elements of their own population to the gods.
Arthur James Outram Anderson was an American anthropologist specializing in Aztec culture and translator of the Nahuatl language.
The Primeros Memoriales is an illustrated Nahuatl-language manuscript compiled by the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún and his indigenous assistants in Tepepulco as the first part of his project to document pre-Columbian Nahua society, known as the Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España.
Antonio Valeriano was a colonial Mexican, Nahua scholar and politician. He was a collaborator with fray Bernardino de Sahagún in the creation of the twelve-volume General History of the Things of New Spain, the Florentine Codex, He served as judge-governor of both his home, Azcapotzalco, and of Tenochtitlan, in Spanish colonial New Spain.
In Aztec religion, Chantico is the deity reigning over the fires in the family hearth. She broke a fast by eating paprika with roasted fish, and was turned into a dog by Tonacatecuhtli as punishment. She was associated with the town of Xochimilco, stonecutters, as well as warriorship. Chantico was described in various Pre-Columbian and colonial codices.
Coatepec Nahuatl is a variety of Nahuatl of southwestern Mexico State and Guerrero spoken by 1,400 people.
In Aztec mythology, Atlahua, Ahtlahua, Atlahoa, Atlavâ or Atlaua was a water God, fisherman and archer. There were said to be at least four ancient Aztec temples at which he was worshiped, the tallest supposedly being over 200 feet tall. The Aztecs prayed to him when there were deaths in water, such as when Hernando Cortez conquered Tenochtitlan, and the lake was said to be "floating with heads and corpses".
