
The sun of the first creation, 4 Ocelot, was eaten by giant felines. The
sun of the second creation, 4 Wind, was destroyed by a gale. The sun of
the third creation, 4 Tlaloc, was destroyed by lightning. The sun of the
fourth creation, 4 Atl, was destroyed by floods. And the sun of the fifth
creation, 4 Ollin, in which we live, will be destroyed by earthquake.
This is a story of the fifth creation.
Coatlique was born on the day 1
Rabbit in the fourth creation. She is the mother earth serpent monster
who floats of the water of Tlalocan, and Miztlan, the underworld on the
ninth level, lies in her bowels.
It is to Coatlique that we offer human hearts for it was her own sacrifice
which created the fifth sun.
Coatlique had four hundred suns who were the stars in the sky. But despite
all these children, Coatlique wanted a daughter. Since she was now past
the age of childbearing, she made herself pregnant
by putting a ball of down in her bosom. Finally her daughter Coyolxauhqui
was born, and this daughter was the moon. But Coatlique's four hundred
sons were humiliated by their mother's late pregnancy and so conspired
together to kill her. On the day 1 Flint Knife, on the temple Coatepec,
Snake Mountain, the sons cut off their mother's head. From her neck, Huitzilopochtli,
the sun, was born. Huitzilopochtli dismembered Coyolxauhqui the moon and
chased away his brothers the stars for causing his mother's death.
Coatlique floats on Tlalocan and demands human hearts as sacrifice equal
to her own sacrifice which brought the fifth sun -- her own son Huitzilopochtli
-- into being, for women who die in childbirth attain the highest level
of afterlife, as do those who die in battle.
Huitzilopochtli
was honored by humans who lived on the mother earth serpent monster's back,
and so when on Huitzilopochtli's birthday of 1 Flint Knife the human Mexica
left Aztlan, land of seven caves, Huitzilopochtli guided them. He led them
to Lake Texcoco, and gave them a sign to settle on an island which lay
in this lake. Here they built the great city of Tenochtitlan, which exists
even to this day, though it is much changed from the time when Coatlique
was honored with the hearts of sacrificial victims. And in this city was
built a temple of Coatepec, place of Huitzilopochtli's birth, which honored
both the sun and Tlaloc, the storm god. For the creation was still young,
and the power of the world was still known.
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