Aztec Pottery and the World Creation Myth

The creation of the world is a common scene depicted in Aztec Masks and Aztec Pottery that have survived.  It chronicles how gods have already created the world five times.

In the beginning from total void and darkness the “Lord of Duality”, Ometecutli created himself.  This being was a union of opposites: good and bad, chaos and order, male and female. Because he was both male and female (”Lord and Lady of Duality”), Ometecutli was able to conceive children. The union of the Male and Female Lords of Duality had four children; Huizilopochtli the god of war, Quetzalcoatl the Plumed Serpent, Tezcatlipoca, the  god Smoking Mirror and Xipe Totec, “Our Lord the Flayed One”) a life-death-rebirth deity. Each child was assigned one of the four cardinal directions (north, south, east and west).

Four ages, or “suns” of 2028 years ensued. Each of these “births of the world” was terminated with cataclysms due to the infighting among the child gods as they competed for power.  All humans in each of the previous four suns were destroyed or transformed.

In this fifth current sun Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, gods ancient and powerful collectively recreated heaven, earth, and all inhabitants.

In the darkness after the destruction of the fourth sun, Quetzalcoatl went down into the underworld to bring up the bones of the dead. They would be used to bring to life the people who would live in the “fifth sun”.  

The pre Columbian Aztecs believed that the war god Huitzilopochtli himself frequently intervened in their behalf bestowing his blessings upon them and allowed them to conquer and rule.  Through his direction the mighty Aztec empire grew.

But the world was an uncertain and fluid place, the sun could not move on its own.  Unhappily, when it first came into the sky, it couldn’t move at all. To remedy this situation, the gods themselves had to exercise blood sacrifices to give energy to the sun and allow it to continue its daily journey.  

Now, humans were expected to repay the debt, to keep the sun moving, with their own blood sacrifices.  Thus the sun required both the blood of gods and humans to continue its journey and it was Huitzilopochtli, the great warrior god in particular who fought for the sun.  Warriors, gods and human alike, fought to offer up sustenance to allow the sun to rise every day and keep moving across the sky. 

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