Home | Hall 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Supplemental Pages | Dictionary
Investigation | Bibliography | Documentation | Urban | Temporal
Mictlantecuhtli and the world of the dead
Few divinities share the prominent place of the God of Death in the intricate Mesoamerican pantheon. A ubiquitous figure in the sculptures and codices of ancient Mexico, the skeletal or partially fleshless image of this deity is already present in the Preclassic art of Tlatilco and Izapa. With the exception of Teotihuacan--where his representations are scarce--during the Classic period the gods of the underworld and their symbols acquire orthodox forms and reproduce profusely. In Maya sculpture they are expressed everywhere by skulls, crossed bones, mandibles, the "sign of division" and the "eyes of the night". Some time later, the complete image of God A together with Gods B, D and E, becomes one of the most frequent in the Postclassic codices: Madrid, Paris and Dresden.
Nevertheless, no art demonstrates such an obsession with the symbolism of death as does the Mexica. In a singular form is molded, on one hand, the physical death, the extinction of life, reproducing with mastery the features and posture of the dead individual. On the other hand and in contrast, are the representations of terrifying deities that speak to us of the fear of the believer and of the importance of his cult.
Mictlantecuhtli, also known as Ixpúztec ("Broken face"), Nextepehua ("Scatterer of ashes") and Tzontémoc ("He who bows the head"), was not the only deity of death adored by the Mexica. Although of lesser importance, divinities such as Mictecacíhuatl, Acolnahuácatl, Acolmiztli, Chalmécatl, Yoaltecuhtli, Chalmecacíhuatl and Yoalcíhuatl belong to this same complex.
The calendar is a good example of the influence of Mictlantecuhtli in the daily lives of the ancient Nahuas. In the 365 day cycle, he is present in the double festival composed of the 20 day "months" of Miccailhuitontli and Huey Miccaílhuitl. In the 260 day cycle, Mictlantecuhtli sometimes appears as the 6th Lord of the Day, 5th Lord of the Night, patron of the day Itzcuintli of the 13-day cycle that begins with 1 Técpatl and his image is the sign of the day Miquiztli.
In Plate 56 of the Codex Borgia, Mictlantecuhtli and Quetzalcóatl are represented as opposite and complementary principles, as death and as the breath of life that form the basic cycle of the universe. This same role is shown in the Leyenda de los Soles and the Popol Vuh, where the gods of death are confronted and evaded - temporarily - by Quetzalcóatl in the first case, and by the divine twins in the second case.
As we pointed out, in one aspect Mictlantecuhtli exercises functions that may seem to us paradoxical - such as the bestower and promoter of life. In this respect, Brotherston has analyzed the central role of Mictlantecuhtli in scenes dealing with penetration, pregnancy, the cutting of the umbilical cord and lactation contained in the Codices Borgia, Vaticanus B and Fejérváry-Mayer. This prominence, while it seems strange, is explained by the regenerative power of the bones-seeds, evident not only in the famous journey of Quetzalcóatl to Mictlan, but also in the Codex Vindobonensis, where the deities that create descendents, the goddesses of pulque and the personified corn field, have skeletal features.
But despite the generative features that Mictlantecuhtli can possess, it is his terrifying character that dominates in the prehispanic worldview. Let us call to mind for a moment images such as those of the House of the Eagles, partially defleshed with threatening claws and, in many cases, related to creatures, such as spiders, centipedes, scorpions, owls and bats. The God of Death is, above all, an insatiable devourer of human flesh and blood (figure 17).
In paintings he appears as an active sacrificer armed with an axe or a flint knife, ready to remove the heart of his victims. In addition, his nose and tongue are formed of sharp knives in the codices, such as the Borgia or in the skull-masks discovered in the Templo Mayor. On polychrome vases and in Maya codices, God A has been painted participating in executions and God A' in sinister scenes of self-decapitation, violent death and sacrifice. It is not strange, therefore, that the Lord of the World of the Dead would inspire such terror in the indigenous imagination. Perhaps because of this, in Plate 22 of the Dresden Codex, God A twice has the sign of the skull (T1048) followed by the glyph bi (T585a), a combination that could be read as xib(i). As we will see, that word is close to the Yucatec word xibil, which is related to the idea of fear.
For the Nahuas of the 16th century, Mictlan was a barren place, large and extremely dark, a "place without ventilation for the removal of fumes." In this regard, it is extremely interesting that Fray Alonso de Molina has noted in his Vocabulario the phrase yuhquim micqui itzinco, which means literally "like in the asshole of the dead man" as a way of saying a dark and fearsome thing. Obviously the Nahua concepts are not an exception in Mesoamerica. The Mayas, for example, used the term Xibalbáas one of the names of the underworld. In quiché this word means "place of fear" and in Yucatec xibilmeans "to tremble with fear, to be frightened or to get goose-bumps. "
Mictlan also is defined as a fearsome place of torments and pestilence, where one drinks pus and eats scabs. Torquemada tells us that the Tlaxcaltecas believed that in the underworld the souls of the common people were converted into "weasels and stink beetles, and little animals that emit a foul-smelling urine, and other scavengers". The Quiches also agree, since they tell us about brave Ixbalanqué, who upon defeating the powerful Lord of the Dead gave him a kick and said: "Go back, and may everything for you be rotten and spoiled and hideous." And to this day the Otom’es of the Huasteca still seal up caves with bags because from them emanate vapors full of disease, death, and the smell of decay.
Home | Hall 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Supplemental Pages | Dictionary
Investigation | Bibliography | Documentation | Urban| TemporalLast Modified: November 30, 2000
Museo del Templo Mayor, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e História, México.
Seminario #8, Centro Histórico, Cuauhtémoc, México, D.F. 06060
©Copyright 1997
Send comment to:Lourdes Cue
