The books

Myths

Mexica teaching, with the Maya thread under it. Gods are offices of the world — sun, rain, wind, earth — not pins, not skull merch. The Mexica books are the Florentine Codex, the Leyenda de los Soles, and the stones. The Maya book for the twins is the Popol Vuh of the Kʼicheʼ.

Mexica

Huitzilopochtli

Huitzilopochtli — Hummingbird of the South (weet-see-lo-POCH-tlee). Born at Coatepec, Snake Mountain. Coatlicue swept a ball of feathers and became pregnant. Her daughter Coyolxauhqui and the four hundred southerners came to kill her. Huitzilopochtli sprang armed from the womb, cut Coyolxauhqui, threw her down the hill. Templo Mayor restaged that hill: south shrine his, the moon-stone at the foot. Mexica took his name as Mexi.

Coatlicue and Coyolxauhqui

Coatlicue — Serpent Skirt (ko-ah-TLEE-kweh). Earth, death, and birth. The great statue in the Museo Nacional wears a skirt of rattlesnakes and a necklace of hands and hearts. Two snake heads meet as her face.

Coyolxauhqui — She of the Golden Bells (ko-yol-SHAH-kee). The dismembered moon. Her round stone was found at Templo Mayor in 1978. That find opened the excavated house again.

Coatlicue statue — Coatlicue. Serpent skirt. Reconstruction of the stone in the Museo Nacional.

Coyolxauhqui stone — Coyolxauhqui. The moon thrown down Coatepec. Reconstruction of the 1978 stone.

Quetzalcoatl / Kukulkán

Quetzalcoatl — Feathered Serpent (ket-sal-KO-ahtl). Wind as Ehecatl, morning star, giver of maize and books. At Tula he is Ce-Acatl Topiltzin. The Maya name the same current Kukulkán (Yucatec) and Qʼuqʼumatz (Kʼicheʼ). El Castillo at Chichén Itzá is his stair — at equinox the shadow of the serpent runs the north balustrade.

El Castillo, Chichén Itzá — El Castillo. Kukulkán’s house. 365-count stair. The quetzal echo.

Eagle and jaguar at the pyre

After Nanahuatzin became the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan, eagle and jaguar went into the fire. That is why they are the two knight houses of Nahui Ollin — cuāuhpipiltin and ocēlōpipiltin. Not a modern pin. Not a skull drawing.

Florentine Codex eagle and jaguar knights — Florentine Codex. Eagle knight left, jaguar knight right. The two who entered the fire.

Eagle warrior, open eagle helm — Cuāuhpilli. Open eagle helm — the face shows. Living golden eagle. Solar chimalli with a feather fringe.

Eagle warrior reconstruction in the same style — The same order, reconstructed: open beak-helm, red cloak, cotton armor, the highland eagle at his side.

Jaguar knight in spotted pelt — Ocēlōpilli. Tawny pelt, black rosettes, jaguar helm. The night house as the books paint it.

Eagle and jaguar at the pyre — The pyre at Teotihuacan. Eagle and jaguar. The birth of this sun.

Huitzilin

Men who died in battle or on the stone went to the sun for four years. Then they returned as huitzilin — hummingbirds — and as butterflies, drinking flower. That is Huitzilopochtli’s bird and the knight after the body. Not a watermark. Not Ollin mislabeled.

Living hummingbird — Huitzilin. The living bird.

Mictlan

Mictlantecuhtli — lord of the dead (meek-tlan-teh-KOO-tlee). Mictlan is the underworld of nine levels. The dead walked it for four years. Mictecacihuatl is his wife. Bone, owl, and the dog Xoloitzcuintli who guides the crossing.

Maya

Popol Vuh — the Hero Twins

The Kʼicheʼ book. Hunahpu and Xbalanque — the Hero Twins. Their father Hun Hunahpu was killed by the lords of Xibalba, the underworld. The twins went down, played the ballgame, outwitted the death-lords, and rose as sun and moon. From maize dough the gods made this people. That is the Maya count of how we were made — sister to the Mexica Fifth Sun, not the same story.

Hero Twins at the ballcourt of Xibalba — Reconstruction: Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The ballgame before Xibalba.

Maya

Ixchel

Ixchel — moon, medicine, weaving, water of birth. A Maya goddess. Her houses: Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, Tulum. The Mexica moon at the foot of Templo Mayor is Coyolxauhqui — a different office, a different people. The two moons are not one name.