Ancient civilizations-2

Cosmology

According to the Aztec cosmological ideas, the earth had the general shape of a great disk divided into four sections oriented to the four cardinal directions. To each of the four world directions were attached five of the 20 day-signs, one of them being a Year-Bearer (east, acatl, “reed”; west, calli, “house”; north, tecpatl, “flint knife”; south, tochtli, “rabbit”), a colour (east, red or green; west, white; north, black; south, blue), and certain gods. The fifth cardinal point, the centre, was attributed to the fire god Huehuetéotl, because the hearth stood at the centre of the house.

Above the earth, which was surrounded by the “heavenly water” (ilhuicáatl) of the ocean, were 13 heavens, the uppermost of which, “where the air is delicate and frozen,” was the abode of the Supreme Couple. Under the “divine earth,” teotlalli, were the nine hells of Mictlan, with nine rivers that the souls of the dead had to cross. Thirteen was considered a favourable number, nine extremely unlucky.

All of the heavenly bodies and constellations were divinized, such as the Great Bear (Tezcatlipoca), Venus (Quetzalcóatl), the stars of the north (Centzon Mimixcoa, “the 400 Cloud-Serpents”), the stars of the south (Centzon Huitznáua, “the 400 Southerners”). The solar disk, Tonatiuh, was supposed to be borne on a litter from the east to the zenith, surrounded by the souls of dead warriors, and from the zenith to the west among a retinue of divinized women, the Cihuateteo. When the night began on the earth, day dawned in Mictlan, the abode of the dead.