Five Suns
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The concept known generally as the Five Suns describes the mythical world-view held by the Aztec and other Nahua peoples, in which the present world was preceded by four other cycles of creation and destruction. It is primarily derived from the mythological, cosmological and eschatological beliefs and traditions of earlier cultures from central Mexico and the Mesoamerican region in general. The Late Postclassic Aztec society inherited many traditions concerning Mesoamerican creation accounts, while however modifying some aspects and supplying novel interpretations of their own.
In the particular versions of eschatology and origin beliefs which were known to the Aztec and other Nahua peoples of the Late Postclassic era, the central tenet was that there had been four worlds, or "Suns", previous to the present universe. These earlier worlds and their inhabitants had been created, then destroyed by the catastrophic action of leading deity figures. The present world is the fifth sun, and the Aztec saw themselves as "the People of the Sun," whose divine duty is to wage cosmic war in order to provide the sun with his tlaxcaltiliztli ("nourishment"). Without it, the sun would disappear from the heavens. Thus the welfare and the very survival of the universe depends upon the offerings of blood and hearts to the sun, a notion that the Aztec extended to many of the deities of their pantheon.
[edit] Destruction of the four suns
The first sun was called Nahui-Ocelotl, "Four-Jaguar," a date of the ritual calendar. Humankind was first destroyed by jaguars, considered by the Aztec as the nahualli ("animal disguise") of the creator god Tezcatlipoca.
At the end of the second sun, Nahui-Ehécatl, "Four-Wind," a magical hurricane transformed all people into monkeys. That disaster was caused by Quetzalcóatl (the Feathered Serpent) in the form of Ehecatl, the wind god.
A rain of fire had put an end to the third sun, Nahuiquiahuitl, "Four-Rain." Tlaloc as the god of thunder and lightning presided over that period.
The fourth sun, Nahui-Atl, "Four-Water," ended in a gigantic flood that lasted for 52 years. Only one man and one woman survived, sheltered in a huge cypress, but they were changed into dogs by Tezcatlipoca, whose orders they had disobeyed.
[edit] Fifth Sun
Quetzalcóatl created present humanity with the help of Feathered Serpent and his twin Xólotl, the dog-headed god, who succeeded in reviving the dried bones of the dead by sprinkling them with his own blood. The present sun is Nahui-Ollin, "Four-Earthquake," and is doomed to disappear in a tremendous earthquake.[citation needed] The skeleton-like monsters of the west, the tzitzimime, will then appear and kill all people.[citation needed]
These beliefs reveal that the universe is unstable, that death and destruction continually threaten it, and that the end can occur on each of the Calendar Round cycles of approximately 52 years that were celebrated in most of Mesoamerica. The other emphasized the necessity of the sacrifice to the gods. Thanks to Quetzalcóatl's self-sacrifice, the ancient bones of Mictlan, "the Place of Death," gave birth to men. In the same way, the sun and moon were created: the gods, assembled in the darkness at Teotihuacán, built a huge fire; two of them, Nanahuatzin, a small deity covered with ulcers, and Tecciztecatl, a richly bejeweled god, threw themselves into the flames, from which the former emerged as the sun and the latter as the moon. Then the sun refused to move unless the other gods gave him their blood; they were compelled to sacrifice themselves to feed the sun.
Over these beliefs they incorporated their local god Huitzilopochtli. They replaced Nanahuatzin, the sun god of the legend, with their own god, a fighting god, with a daily battle to keep the shadows and destruction away.
