Aztec+Mythology

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The Aztecs were very graphic people and believed in sacrifice to the gods and the gods themselves were sacrificed at there own will. Many civilizations have their stories about how the world was created, The Aztecs where no different. Their worlds were called suns. Each sun ended in a catastrophe. =====

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In the [|"Legend of the Suns]", we see how the Aztec's thought the world and themselves came to be. This story, like others we have studied, shows the presence of the gods and goddesses who ruled over certain things in there culture such as crops and fertility. Which made the Aztecs sacrifice thousands of people and there precious articles such as gold. There wasn’t just one creation in the Aztec mythology, there were four. Each one was associated with an element (earth, wind, water, fire). Each world was born in its element and died by it's own hand. The Black Tezcatlipoca, (the bad dark god ) ruled the first world, which was the world of earth. The first inhabitants were giants. When Quetzalcoatl, (the good god) threw Tezcatlipoca into the ocean, he came out as a jaguar and ate all the giants.Quetzalcoatl then ruled over the second sun. This sun was the sun of wind. Tezcatlipoca then came back to earth, and toppled Quetzalcoatl with a huricane, which destroyed the the second sun. Tlaloc the ,rain god, then took over the third sun. This sun was the sun of fire rain. Quetzalcoatl then ended another world with fire raining from the sky.The ruler of the fourth sun was Tlalocs sister, Chalchuihtlicue. It was the sun of water. This sun was destroyed by a flood that wiped everything out. Everyone in the fourth sun was then turned to fish. We are now in the fifth sun which is the sun of earthquakes. The world we are in know is supposed to end in an earthquake. Each world and its inhabitants were ended by its element. Although each world was destroyed, a better humanity came of it. =====

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The Aztecs told "The Legend of the Suns" to explain why the earth came to be. The Aztecs believed that there were different time periods called suns. We are living in the fifth sun. The fifth sun is the sun of earthquakes. The Aztecs believed that each sun is destroyed in a huge catastrophe. They also said that the sun was destroyed by what it was about. Such as, The Wind Sun being destroyed by a hurricane. The Aztecs told this story to explain why some events and creatures came to be. Such as the second sun which was the wind. This sun was destroyed by a hurricane, which also says why the hurricane was created. Also in the story, it told about how the Aztecs believed in many gods. Such as Black Tezcatlipoca who was the bad god, and Quetzalcoatl who was portrayed as a feathered serpent or as an old man. They also believed in Huitzilopochtli who was the war god. In the story, the Aztecs talked about how the people were sacrificed to the gods, and how the gods were sacrificed. Such as Tezcatlipoca sacrificing himself to become the sun, after having people sacriface for him. =====

"Aztec Priest Performs Sacrifice to the Sun and War God Huitzilopochtli." Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. //Ancient and Medieval History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE49&iPin=AMH506&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 29, 2008). (+) Enlarge Image <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">

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<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">This story The Legend of the Suns not only told about the way the Aztecs believed the world was created, it also told us about the Aztecs themselves. The story portrays the Aztecs past, how their world came to what it was today and the rival between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca showing the relationship the Aztecs believed the gods had. The Aztec religion was composed of many gods and goddesses and hundreds of human sacrifices; religion was important to them as portrayed in the story. There religion believed that human blood pleased the gods that most. There where a few gods they had to please the most, one of them was Anchor. The mask of Quetzalcoatl He was the center of other important religions in Mesopotamia. The encyclopedia of Native American Tribes says that, "Earlier Mesoamerican civilizations had practiced human sacrifice, but the Aztec carried out their bloody rituals on the largest scale." Sacrifice wasn’t just the spilling of the human blood, it was taking all the blood out, cutting between the ribcage and taking the still beating heart out with your bare hands. Things that make your stomach flip and get a little sick feeling in your mouth, they didn’t just sacrifice the body, the basically destroyed it. They sacrifice human blood to Quetalcoatl and many other gods for forgiveness and prosperity. Lucky for them, Quetzalcoatl was (as the stories say) a merciful and forgiving god. Other gods like Huitzilopochtli wanted thousands upon thousands of prisoners to be sacrificed on stone temples. They made their sacrifices to gods like Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl on stone alters on top of pyramids. The gods and their beliefs of how the world came to what it is have always been important to them. This story not only told a story, it showed about the Aztecs culture. =====

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<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">The world is said to be a diverse place where no two people are alike. I was even told this when I was in preschool, but when people start bombing each other over the way they live their lives and their religion we don’t take the recognition we are them. We have our home we have, our families, the people we love,   =====

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<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">the people we wish to love, the people we want to love us, our favorite places, our religion. Religion and gods are different all over the world but they are encompassed under one main thing religion so when those guns fire and those bombs exploded were killing ourselves our family. Back in the time of the Aztecs  <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> almost every society had multiple gods governing over certain things in their society such as childbirth and the fertility of crops. The Romans where one of the society’s like the Aztecs the Romans had a polytheistic religion meaning to believe in more than one god, some of these gods are, Mercury, Jupiter, and Ceres <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> an important goddesses who ruled over growing plants, and motherly love. The Aztecs had gods and goddesses that ruled over some of the things the roman gods and goddesses did such as <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Quetzalcoatl <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">, the deity of everyday life including fertility and agriculture. Through time you can see the influences of one culture on another, for example the Greeks spread their Religion threw the Roman culture and in turn the Romans adapted their religion. Though the Aztecan Civilization was very far from the ones of Greece it still had a major details in its creation story that reflected the creation story of ancient  <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Greece. The Aztecs believed that  <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">t   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">here was four “worlds” each one much different than the previous one   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">and   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">each getting more advanced and better each time a   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">   <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">new world grew from the destruction of the one before it. The Greeks had four worlds to the first was the golden age where man kind had no worries and the earths fruits where given to them with no work, and everyone is at peace, this age could be described as a utopia. After the fall of this one which was due to a power shift in the heavens a silver age came to be but this world was harsher mankind now had to work for it’s supper. After that age a bronze age arose and with it came warfare. The last age was the Iron age and now man kind was hopelessly horrible in it’s own right. Zeus finally took out the Iron age with the great flood leaving human kind as is today. =====

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//<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Conclusion //
<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">We have gone to the past and visited three cultures on two sides of the earth, each with a different culture and ideas but all the same in the basics of religion. We have read how the Aztecs believed the world was created. The Aztecs sacrificed many types of objects and people, we have learned they are a polytheistic society, and though they where isolated from many parts of the world they still believed that the world didn’t begin in it’s current state and that there where levels and evolution. As we have said each sun ends in catastrophe and it so happens that the Aztecs calender ends in twenty twelve, our graduating year, the connection to the creation story from this is that our story says that our world now will end in an earthquake because this age is called the sun of movement.

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====<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">O'Neal, Michael J. "religion and cosmology in ancient Rome." In Bogucki, Peter, ed. Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?**//**//**//**//  ==== <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">ItemID=WE49&iPin=ESCAW553&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 26, 2008).
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//<span style="COLOR: rgb(228,12,12)"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Greek Creation Story  //
<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> ====<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Ashliman, D.L.. "The Creation of Earth and the Great flood." www.pitt.edu. Saint Patricks Day, 2002. D.L. Ashliman. 26 September, 2008. <http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/creation-ovid.html>. ==== <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">

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//<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="COLOR: rgb(249,16,16); FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Aztec God //
<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">"Gods and Goddesses of South and Meso-America." Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE49&iPin=amchart007&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 26, 2008).

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<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">,. "Demeter/Ceres Image Gallery". Demeter/Ceres Image Gallery. . <http://altreligion.about.com/library/graphics/bl_demeter.htm>. 29 September, 2008. =====

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<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">http://www.worldbook.com/wb/images/content_spotlight/cinco/aztecTOT.jpg**//**//**//**// <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> ====<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/oxford/Oxford_Mythology/0192177478.Quetzalcoatl.1.jpg**//**// [|Leon-Portilla, Miguel] [1963] (1990). Aztec Thought and Culture, Davis, J.E. (trans), Norman, Oklahoma: Oklahoma University Press. [|ISBN 0-8061-2295-1]. ==== <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">

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<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">Waldman, Carl. "Aztec." Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Third Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. American History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE52&iPin=ind2320&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 24, 2008).

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Image "Aztec Priest Performs Sacrifice to the Sun and War God Huitzilopochtli." Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. //Ancient and Medieval History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE49&iPin=AMH506&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 29, 2008). (+) Enlarge Image <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> =====

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> ===<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif">Website [|www.fofweb.com/NuHistory/default.asp?ItemID=WE49&NewItemID=True]    ===

Bunson, Margaret R., and Stephen M. Bunson. "Quetzalcoatl." //Encyclopedia of Ancient Mesoamerica//. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1996. //Ancient and Medieval History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE49&iPin=MES0975&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 29, 2008).

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