Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
While other well-known post-colonial Aztec codices mostly document native life in Tenochtitlan, the largest city in the Aztec empire and the one that would eventually develop into the modern-day capitol of Mexico City, much of the content of the Codex Ixtlilxochitl is associated with life in Texcoco and offers a more diverse perspective on day ...
During the Spanish Conquest, Christianity was imposed on the Nahua people, which prohibited many traditions and celebrations linked to Aztec gods, including Netotiliztli. Netotiliztli survived because the Nahua shifted the dance's meaning from a spiritual tradition of celebration and worship, to a dance solely for pleasure.
The most spectacular ritual was the New Fire ceremony which took place every 52 years and involved every citizen of the Aztec realm. During this, commoners would destroy house utensils, quench all fires, and receive new fire from the bonfire on top of Mt. Huixachtlan, lit on the chest of a sacrificed person by the high priests.
Sacrifice was a common theme in the Aztec culture. In the Aztec "Legend of the Five Suns", all the gods sacrificed themselves so that mankind could live.Some years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, a body of the Franciscans confronted the remaining Aztec priesthood and demanded, under threat of death, that they desist from this traditional practice.
The Mexica of the Aztec period are perhaps the most widely studied of the ancient Mesoamerican peoples. While most pre-Columbian historians believe that ritual cannibalism took place in the context of human sacrifices, they do not support Harris' thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet.
The New Fire Ceremony (Spanish: Ceremonia del Fuego Nuevo) was an Aztec ceremony performed once every 52 years—a full cycle of the Aztec “calendar round”—in order to stave off the end of the world. The calendar round was the combination of the 260-day ritual calendar and the 365-day annual calendar.
It was an Aztec belief that through ritual costuming among other processes, the teixiptla assumes the life force/universal power (called teotl) of a deity and becomes their embodiment. [2] These ritual costumes included the flayed skin of sacrificial victims and/or deity regalia which included headdresses and clothing among other accouterments. [3]
The Aztec religion is one of the most widely documented pre-Hispanic cultures. Diego Durán in the Book of the Gods and Rites wrote about the religious practices devoted to the water gods, Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue, and a very important part of their annual ritual included the sacrifice of infants and young children.