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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.
Ochpaniztli was largely concerned with sweeping, which was a reference to the rush of winds that occurred in the valley of Mexico before the winter rains came, the end of the growing season and the start of the harvesting season.
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.
Many contemporary cultural traditions exist within the Greater Southwest, including Yuman-speaking peoples inhabiting the Colorado River valley, the uplands, and Baja California, O'odham peoples of Southern Arizona and northern Sonora, and the Pueblo peoples of Arizona and New Mexico.
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.
The Aztecs would often adopt gods from different cultures and allow them to be worshiped as part of their pantheon. For example, the fertility god, Xipe Totec, was originally a god of the Yopi (the Nahuatl name of the Tlapanec people), but became an integrated part of the Aztec belief system.
The "singeing ceremony" was given to both Aztec boys and girls. It is uncertain of the age in which this ritual occurred. It was indicative of becoming one with the stars, as the burns on the wrists were aligned with certain constellations. A stick that had been placed in a fire would be pressed onto the skin of the child and the scar was thus ...
The Aztec empire's state-sanctioned religion meanwhile had to fulfill the spiritual obligations of the upper classes while maintaining their control over the lower classes and conquered populations. This was executed in grand public religious ceremonies, sponsorship of the most popular cults, and a relative degree of religious freedom.