[HN Gopher] A Visual Guide to the Aztec Pantheon
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A Visual Guide to the Aztec Pantheon
Author : sdoering
Score : 248 points
Date : 2022-06-17 08:21 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pudding.cool)
(TXT) w3m dump (pudding.cool)
| christkv wrote:
| I'll post this great documentary about the rise and fall of the
| Aztec empire. This is the first part https://youtu.be/f8JVdpWCKeM
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Worth pointing out that while that documentary isn't
| irredeemably bad, it gets a _lot_ of information wrong. The
| whole point about the timing of corn domestication, for
| example? Wrong dates, and corn wasn 't even close to the first
| crop domesticated. Squashes were and evidence for their
| domestication in the Americas extends to at least 11k BP. The
| bronze-making thing? Mesoamerica was notoriously late to game
| as far as American metallurgy goes, but it had been present in
| mesoamerica since around the 7th century.
|
| The second has much the same issues with being unfamiliar with
| current knowledge and an uncritical acceptance of literary
| sources/narratives.
| scaglio wrote:
| Amazing work! I'd just like the final table to be interactive as
| soon as it becomes visible, but it's a great site.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I was going to make an NFT joke but these illustrations are so
| cool they don't belong in the same breath.
| 1shooner wrote:
| I was thinking that minting deities would get us even further
| into Stephenson territory, which means its probably happening
| already...
| whatshisface wrote:
| More than one of these purports to have become the moon; I'm
| skeptical.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Very interesting, would love to see something similar for what we
| know of the Mayan deities and beliefs too.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| The author mentions being inspired by the anime The Mysterious
| Cities of Gold. I found that anime to be historically well
| informed (informed, but not historically accurate, just consider
| the flying Conder machine). This led me to do some digging on the
| story and I found the real, historical inspirations for the
| characters.
|
| Shameless plug, read my findings here:
|
| https://jeffzurita.com/2019/05/19/estevan-and-the-cities-of-...
| TheMerovingian wrote:
| I'd love to see this for the old Slavic gods (e.g. Perun, Vales,
| etc).
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Here's a wonderful series of comments on Aztec culture and
| thought, here on HN:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19060487
|
| The post and discussion recommend the book _Aztecs - An
| Interpretation_ by Inga Clendinnen:
| https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107589094#fndtn-information
|
| It's a captivating book. Truly.
|
| From the Cambridge Books site:
|
| _Book description:_
|
| _In 1521, the city of Tenochtitlan, magnificent centre of the
| Aztec empire, fell to the Spaniards and their Indian allies. Inga
| Clendinnen 's account of the Aztecs recreates the culture of that
| city in its last unthreatened years. It provides a vividly
| dramatic analysis of Aztec ceremony as performance art, binding
| the key experiences and concerns of social existence in the late
| imperial city to the mannered violence of their ritual killings._
|
| _Reviews_
|
| _' ... a fascinating, thought-provoking book. Aztecs offers a
| gripping account of an alien society and thus enlarges our
| apprehension of the sheer diversity of human culture.'_
|
| _Source: London Review of Books_
|
| _' This is an outstanding book ...'_
|
| _Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement_
| bradrn wrote:
| I recall thinking that was an excellent blog post too... until
| I actually mentioned it to someone who knew something about the
| Aztecs, at which point we realised that both it and Clendinnen
| badly misremresented Aztec society as compared to European
| society. The relevant conversation may still be found at
| http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?p=33912#p33912.
| [deleted]
| armandososa wrote:
| > But, despite this enchantment, Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were the
| only gods I could identify, while I could name dozens of Greek,
| Egyptian or Norse Gods.
|
| I think this is related to racism. The Aztecs were short and
| brown people who were considered inferior by the europeans who
| "conquered" them. Thus, their deities and religion are
| unimportant.
|
| My middle name is "Quetzalcoatl" and I spent most of my life
| ashamed of it, and hiding it, because of the bullying. I would've
| been call an "indio" (I'm short and brown) and indios are
| supposed to be stupid and ignorant. These days I would like to
| proudly present myself as Quetzalcoatl, but the prejudice is
| still there.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Oh give over. Norse gods are european, and with greek, roman
| and egyption gods, we've had thousands of years awareness &
| contact with those cultures.
|
| > who were considered inferior by the europeans who "conquered"
| them
|
| Anyone who wasn't a catholic was probably considered subhuman
| by the truly appalling conquistadors
|
| > indios are supposed to be stupid and ignorant
|
| news to me.
| calibas wrote:
| > Oh give over. Norse gods are european, and with greek,
| roman and egyption gods, we've had thousands of years
| awareness & contact with those cultures.
|
| Ah, eurocentrism. It's forgivable since you were likely
| educated this way since birth, but it comes off as hideously
| insensitive to other cultures.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >but it comes off as hideously insensitive to other
| cultures.
|
| more ignorant than insensitive. it's not that they aren't
| showing concern because they don't like and feel it is
| inferior, it is just unknown in totatlity to them. is being
| unaware of something's existence being insensitive to it,
| or have others become hypersensitive?
| cambalache wrote:
| whatshisface wrote:
| The Aztec religion before the plague and the establishment of
| that awful island empire might have been very different -
| imagine what would happen of American Christianity if 90% of
| the population died and a bloodthirsty militant faction took
| over the remnants. Maybe some of it will turn up over the next
| century of archeology.
| pookah wrote:
| Be lucky you live in 2022. In the 1500's the Aztecs routinely
| sacrificed children for Tlaloc. And these weren't clean
| deaths. The children were tortured by the high priests and
| crowds to induce hysteria and sobbing before having their
| hearts ripped out of their chests. They were then skinned and
| the priests would wear the flayed skin for 20 days. And it
| goes without saying that these kids weren't willing
| participants.
|
| https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/acrobats/319_1.pdf
|
| There's a reason the Aztec had so many enemies and why the
| locals embraced a religion where the sacrifice was Jesus.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Probably not so different. There were numerous dialogues and
| debates between Mexica priests and Jesuits, as many priests
| survived the collapse of Tenochtitlan so there's good second
| hand evidence about their beliefs. Nahuas were writing their
| language using the Spanish alphabet by 1528 and there are
| accounts written by Mexica that remembered the time prior to
| the arrival of the Spanish. There's also a lot of
| archeological evidence that's turned up in the lat decade
| including in 2020 a skull tower that scholars had previously
| thought was an invention of Spanish writers.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's not the apocalypse I meant, I was talking about the
| one that _Produced_ Tenochtitlan. The deaths from smallpox
| and the vanishing of the cities they 're now finding
| evidence of happened before the Spanish conquests.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The first know case of smallpox in Mexico was in 1520.
| It's REALLY unlikely that small pox reached anywhere near
| Tenochtitlan before Cortes, after all he arrived there in
| 1521, a mere 29 years after Columbus' initial landing.
| Cortes was part of the first wave of explorers in Mexico.
| Tenochtitlan was founded in the 1320, a full 500 years
| after the collapse of the Mayan city states. Teotihuacan
| which was near Tenochtitlan also collapsed during that
| period. When the Mexica arrived at lake Texcoco, there
| were already several thriving city states, that didn't
| collapse and two of them became part of the Triple
| Alliance with the Mexica.
|
| I've never seen evidence of smallpox preceding the
| Spanish in Mexico, as it did above the RIo Grande.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| This period is well recorded. Cortes made it to
| Tenochtitlan the first time before small pox. Cortes and
| company were driven from the city and nearly killed. The
| Spaniards regrouped and were reinforced while small pox
| devastated the Aztec population - including Tenochtitlan.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yes, that's exactly what I'm pointing to.
| lliamander wrote:
| > I think this is related to racism.
|
| I don't know the author's cultural background, although I would
| guess they are from either the U.K. or France (their name is
| Breton in origin). It is at best straining the definition of
| racism to claim that it is racist to be more familiar with
| one's own culture (including it's historical influences) than
| with a foreign culture.
|
| It is sad to hear that you were belittled for your name (that
| _is_ racist) but it is not because of racism that Westerners
| are generally unfamiliar with the gods of the Aztec.
| agomez314 wrote:
| This is very useful as I've been reading Hugh Thomas' epic,
| "Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico"[1] and
| having a good understanding of these deities is fundamental to
| understand the life and culture of the Mexica people.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Cortes-Montezuma-Fall-
| Mexico...
| delaaxe wrote:
| What JS library is used to produce this scrolling effect?
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| Likely just some custom css animations.
|
| This build doesn't obfuscate what it's done with, so wappalizer
| can show some of the technologies used. (Svelte, vite, corejs,
| AWS, nodejs)
|
| And Svelte makes it pretty straightforward to make custom
| animations like this
| joe8756438 wrote:
| The illustrations are _so good_, beautiful work and rendered well
| for breaking down the whole to understand the meaning of the
| components.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| This surprises me as I read a lot about Aztecs and their
| iconography was described by an expert as 'dense and obscure' and
| i never found good examples of any of it, so this is ...
| interesting.
|
| Some doubts, the 'blood drops' on the skull are - I think -
| actually pox marks from disease, quite appropriate for the death
| god. Also, missing is a note on their sandals which if you look,
| have a high back to them around the heel. This was apparently a
| symbol of rank (weird eh).
|
| I'd like to see clearer references to explain each, and some
| explanation of why, as well as what. But good to see this.
| derevaunseraun wrote:
| imo the most bizarre thing about the Aztecs was the sheer
| magnitude of human sacrifice. In order for human sacrifice to be
| such a big tradition during times of peace implies a completely
| different sense of self and life as a whole. When the
| missionaries came and tried to put a stop to the sacrifices, the
| victims actually fought to be sacrificed. It's just bizarre (and
| unsettling) how culture can push people to do things to their own
| detriment
|
| Source (alternative frontend w/ no ads):
| https://yewtu.be/watch?v=or6W4sXpl3c
| dylan604 wrote:
| But to their culture, you're not a very good whatever to not be
| willing to sacrafice yourself for the betterment of the group.
|
| Everything is a matter of perspective. You believe that the
| gods they believe(d) in are not real, but to them, it was. They
| were happy in their ways of life until the foreigners came in
| and forced their beliefs on them. Are/were they better off
| being forced to stop? No way to know. Soldiers in ancient times
| thought it was better to die in combat than escape to fight
| another day.
| bane wrote:
| I'm wondering if anybody can shed light on the prevalence of 'TL'
| in so many Aztec language words? IIR it's a latinized way of
| representing a single unique consonant, but it's fascinating that
| it's in nearly every name and in so many other Aztec words I've
| seen.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| I've read that 'tl' was similar to the welsh 'll' sound (a kind
| of hissy L sound, though not really, youtube will have some
| spoken examples) but when I've heard 'tl' spoken it usually
| sounds like a 'tl', as in 'little'.
| sudenmorsian wrote:
| Yes, it's a very similar sound. The Welsh <ll> is the
| voiceless lateral fricative /l/, which is effectively <tl>
| without the initial 't' at the start of the phoneme.
|
| See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_and_alveo
| lar_...
| sudenmorsian wrote:
| In Classical Nahuatl, non-possessed nouns would take the
| absolutive case with -tl for nouns ending in vowels, and -tli
| for nouns ending in consonants. [0] Here, as you mentioned,
| <tl> marks a single consonant: the voiceless alveolar lateral
| affricate /tl/ [1].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_grammar#Noun...
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_aff...
| dwringer wrote:
| There is some limited discussion here[0] which doesn't fully
| explain the prevalence of "tl" but suggests the word "atl"
| meaning "water" was very common and often combined with other
| words to create new words metaphorically.
|
| [0]https://basketmakeratlatl.com/?page_id=1508
| craigbaker wrote:
| It is a common noun-forming suffix in Nahuatl.
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-tl
| once_inc wrote:
| This is pretty cool; a very interesting way of displaying the
| information. The final grid and the information about the gods is
| underwhelming though. I would have liked to know what the reason
| for the structuring of the grid is, and would love far more
| information about each of the gods, but especially the major
| ones.
| sparsely wrote:
| If this was run by a major collection or archive it would have
| been cool to link out from the gods to images of the works that
| depict them.
| timmy-k wrote:
| Things I didn't even know I needed.
|
| And a brilliant way to present the info
| 725686 wrote:
| The images are amazing an are SVG.
| divbzero wrote:
| What are the best editors for creating images like this?
| youessayyyaway wrote:
| Inkscape is a good place to start.
| oersted wrote:
| How is such particular symbolism derived and recovered in
| practice during research? Is it from surrounding writing? How
| explicit is it?
|
| I mean, how do we know for instance that the necklace of prickly
| pears symbolizes the human heart?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The prickly pear thing is pretty straightforward, it's part of
| the founding myth of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec empire. When
| the Mexica were wandering from Aztlan, they had a battle where
| they cut out the heart of a demigod named Copil and threw it
| into Lake Texcoco, where it grows into a prickly pear. Awhile
| later, the Aztecs are ready to settle down and their patron
| deity Huitzilopochtli told them to look for the eagle eating a
| snake. Eventually they come to the lake and see an eagle
| sitting on Copil's cactus heart eating a snake, so that's where
| they founded Tenochtitlan and where the Mexican flag comes
| from.
|
| There's no single way we figure out symbolism though. Sometimes
| it's pretty obvious, like Copil's heart. Sometimes you can just
| ask people (ethnographic analogy). In other cases people use
| the symbol as a reference to the deity and you figure it out
| from context. Sometimes writings and rituals straight up say
| it, or you can figure it out from related cultures. And
| sometimes it's basically a pun, where the words/symbols look or
| sound like something else associated with the deity.
|
| The biblical name of Adam vs Adamah (dirt/earth) is a more
| familiar example of the last one.
| Namari wrote:
| Nice to see something about MesoAmerican gods! I like how
| Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan is sometimes represented as a Viking with
| scale and beard, makes you think there could have been "Vinland"
| in the Gulf of Mexico too.
| alehlopeh wrote:
| The article makes no mention of this and since Vikings didn't
| have a monopoly on beards or scales, I don't think your
| statement earned the matter-of-fact-edness with which you
| delivered it.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| It's not a huge deal and maybe it's just me, but I find adding
| the word "Imaginary" in front of their Gods completely
| unnecessary, even annoying. I never heard anyone explaining
| Christianity by putting Imaginary in front of every mention of
| the God, so why do it to other religions?
| gfaure wrote:
| Did you misinterpret the article? Before the section with the
| imaginary gods, it clearly reads:
|
| > The Gods illustrated below are imaginary. These made-up
| illustrations show how symbols and attributes in real Aztec
| iconography were composed to depict a God's domain, abilities
| and needs.
|
| The mentions of the real Aztec gods (Tlaltecuhtli and on) do
| not suggest that they are imaginary.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification, I totally misunderstood the
| idea obviously... it was a long day I guess...
| Seich wrote:
| The first two are "Imaginary" in the sense that the author made
| them up to show how the iconography works. The rest are real
| Aztec gods and are denoted with their actual names.
| rendall wrote:
| Excellent work and work of art. It was a pleasant surprise to see
| Svelte being used for this.
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