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as the Church had succeeded in converting the Celtic Samhain—also a time when the dead walked the earth—into All Souls’ Day (see chapter 5), the Aztec celebration of the dead was merged with Catholic tradition. But the ancient native roots of what is now known as Día de los Muertos (“day of the dead”) didn’t go away. Although increasingly commercialized into a “Hispanic Halloween” festival that extends well beyond October 31, the ancient traditions of this celebration of the dead are very much alive. Today, people in Mexico and Latin America, as well as many Hispanic Americans, don wooden skull masks and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. Wooden skulls are also placed on altars dedicated to the dead. Candy “skulls” of sugar and “Day of the Dead” cookies are widely sold. In many places, it is customary to make a trip to the cemetery for a graveside picnic comprising the deceased person’s favorite foods. Gifts for the dead are also placed on graves.

WHO’S WHO OF AZTEC GODS

The Aztecs worshipped hundreds of divinities who were believed to rule all human activities and aspects of nature. This list includes some of the Aztecs’ central deities.

Centeotl (Cinteotl) God of the all-important maize, Centeotl is a key fertility figure. Every April, people offer him their blood, which is dropped on reeds and displayed on front doors. Centeotl also performs penitence that ensures abundant crops for mankind. All the attributes connected to Centeotl—blood sacrifice, penitence, and an April festival—were connected by Catholic priests to Jesus and his springtime crucifixion and resurrection.

Coatlicue Known as the Lady of the Serpent Skirt, Coatlicue is the mother of the central god Huitzilopochtli as well as an earth serpent goddess. She wears a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace of human hearts, and carries a skull pendant. Endowed with flabby breasts and clawed hands and feet, Coatlicue feeds on human corpses. But she is not totally without redeeming qualities. Since she is goddess of the fertility of the earth, she freely gives life-sustaining crops to humanity.

In a key Aztec myth, Coatlicue is magically impregnated in an “immaculate conception” when a ball or clump of feathers falls from the sky and lands on her breast. Thinking that their mother has disgraced herself by becoming pregnant, Coatlicue’s 400 children plan to kill her to uphold the family honor. In some accounts, Coatlicue is killed; in others, she lives. Either way, she gives birth to Huitzilopochtli, who springs from her body fully formed and kills many of his half-siblings. The idea of the virgin birth of Jesus would have been completely acceptable to the people who embraced this myth of a god born from a pregnancy that came from a clump of heavenly feathers.

Huitzilopochtli While many Aztec deities were borrowed or transformed from other myths of Mesoamerica, Huitzilopochtli is “All-Aztec.” Chief deity of the Aztecs, the god of war and the sun, Huitzilopochtli commands the Aztec warriors to create an empire, fight without mercy, and gather the captives necessary for sacrifice to the gods. Each night he undergoes a transformation, much like the Egyptian Re, becoming bones and returning to the world the next morning. His name means “blue hummingbird of the left,” because dead warriors become hummingbirds and fly to the underworld. Appropriately, Huitzilopochtli is depicted as a blue man fully armed and decorated with hummingbird feathers.

Huitzilopochtli’s birth is exceptional because he springs fully formed from his mother Coatlicue’s body just as she is about to be killed by her 400 children. Huitzilopochtli kills his half-sister Coyolxauhqui, or Golden Bells, and tosses her head into the heavens, where it becomes the moon. With his mother the earth, his sister the moon, and his 400 brothers who comprise the stars of the Milky Way, Huitzilopochtli and his family make up the entire cosmos.

Mictlantecuhtli God of death, Mictlantecuhtli rules the silent kingdom of the dead known as Mictlan. Depicted as a skeleton wearing a pleated