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The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
With the Spanish conquest, there was a great effort to convert Aztecs to Catholicism. Through fear, threat of capital punishment, and boarding schools for young Aztecs, the Spanish tried to enforce worship of the Christian God. The Spanish attempted to gut the Aztec religion by abolishing human sacrifice and worship of the war gods.
According to Mexica mythology, in the beginning, there were two primordial gods, Omecíhuatl and Ometecuhtli, whose children became the creator gods. The names of these creator gods were Xipetótec, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcóatl, and Huitzilopochtli, and they inherited the art of creation from their parents. From the preexisting matter, after 600 ...
Atlaua, god of water and protector of archers and fishermen. The Aztecs prayed to Atlaua when there were deaths in water. Ōpōchtli, god of fishing and birdcatchers. Apparently, Opochtli is the discoverer of both the harpoon and net. Teoyaomiqui, god of flowers and dead warriors. [11]
The Nahua people such as the Aztecs, Chichimecs and the Toltecs believed that the heavens were constructed and separated into 13 levels, usually called Topan or simply each one Ilhuicatl iohhui, Ilhuicatl iohtlatoquiliz. Each level had from one to many Lords (gods) living in and ruling them.
The Aztecs adopted his cult during the reign of Axayacatl (1469–81). During Tlacaxipehualiztli ("Flaying of Men"), the second ritual month of the Aztec year, the priests killed human victims by removing their hearts. They flayed the bodies and put on the skins, which were dyed yellow and called teocuitlaquemitl ("golden clothes").
Álvaro Enrigue's new novel, "You Dreamed of Empires," recounts the fateful meeting of Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma that doomed the Aztec civilizations. How Aztec Mexico was lost in translation ...
The Aztecs believed that the gods created the universe at Teotihuacan. The name Teōtīhuacān was given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs centuries after the fall of the city around 550 CE. The term has been glossed as "birthplace of the gods", or "place where gods were born", [3] reflecting Nahua creation myths that were said to occur in ...