Kandi DomingMay 3, 2014

The Shamans Sign

For many Mesoamerican societies, life was organized into

religious cycles that permeated into various aspects of daily

life. For the Aztec, the Templo Mayor in the capital city of

Tenochtitlan was the symbolic center of the universe, or axis

mundi. This was the ultimate symbol of the shaman because it

served as a monumental stage for ritual performance as well as

the figurative and literal center of the Aztec world. Many

surviving manuscripts, including the Florentine and Durán

codices, were written by Spanish missionaries attempting to

document the indigenous beliefs and practices of the Aztec that

existed prior to the conquest which included several descriptions

and images of the Templo Mayor (fig.1). The following paper will

address the significance of the Tempo Mayor as a symbol for

shamanistic ritual, an explanation of what it represents, and the

role it played within the context of the urban space.

At the height of the Aztec Empire, religious practices

combined a number of ritual, mythic, and cosmic elements that

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often involved human sacrifice and ritual bloodletting. The cycle

of life, death, and resurrection is repeated over and over again

in Aztec ritual performances that established the reciprocal

relationship of obligation between humankind and the gods, which

could only be repaid through offerings of human blood and

sacrifice (Smith 2012:197). The shaman held a privileged position

in the social hierarchy of the Aztec empire because they served

as the intermediary between the human world and the gods. As a

symbol, the Templo Mayor dominated the spiritual landscape of the

sacred city. The monumental architecture of pre-conquest Mexico

demonstrated the power held by the state to organize such large

scale projects. The double stepped pyramid was an archaic design

specific to the Aztec that can be traced to the Early Aztec

Period (AD 1150–1350) at the sites of Teopanzolco and Tenayuaca

(Smith 2012;41-45).

At the top of the pyramid, the dual temples of

Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc rose above all other buildings in the

Sacred Precinct. The southern half was dedicated to

Huitzilopochtli, solar and war god, while the northern half was

dedicated to Tlaloc, the god of rain, water, and the earth’s

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fertility (Smith 2012;204). These two deities combined

represented the natural and communal world of the Aztec empire.

The temple pyramid functioned as a stage for ritual performance

and as a demonstration of the ruler’s power over the cosmos. Each

ruler would add a new layer to the temple which served the dual

purpose of memorializing their reign and legitimizing their rule.

Together, Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli symbolize the cycle of life

and fertility, and mark the geographic, ritual, and symbolic

heart of the universe, uniting old and new, center and periphery,

in the sacred artificial mountain looming over the Aztec capital

(Guggenheim). According to Aztec mythology, the gods sacrificed

themselves to ensure the motion of the sun, dying every night to

be reborn every morning in order to ensure the cycle of the sun

and moon and the preservation of life; "Let this be, that through

us the sun may be revived. Let all of us die" (Carrasco 80).

Through this cosmology, the Aztec understood that in return for

their sacrifice the gods required human blood to keep the cosmos

in order.

The highest priests of the Aztec religion were the fire

priests who were responsible for human sacrifice. The two fire

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priests who presided over each temple at the Templo Mayor held

the title quetzalqoatl and would have presented a terrible sight to

outsiders as their bodies were died black and scarred, mutilated

from constant bloodletting (Smith 2012:219). For the Aztec, blood

sacrifices were made to feed the gods and were not thought of as

a symbolic gesture. Blood was considered an essential element in

regeneration and the best way to feed the gods in order to

sustain the cosmos (Gruzinski 1992:77). As I mentioned

previously, the gods were not exempt from death. The Aztec

believed their gods interacted with them and could be present in

the human world. Divine forces needed to die in order to regain

their strength and be reborn more powerful. For this reason the

human sacrifices became the vessel for the gods and the human

beings being sacrificed became the expression of the divine

presence on earth (Gruzinski 1992:77).

Human sacrifice was not the only ritual performed at the

Templo Mayor to feed the gods. Autosacrifice, the ritual letting

of one’s own blood, was a primary function of the shaman’s

duties. The blood sacrifice could be made on behalf of others for

various reasons, such as health and agricultural success, which

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would in turn benefit the people (Klein 1987:295). Bloodletting

and use of hallucinogenic plants were used to enter trances for

divination. Evidence of altered states of consciousness used to

evoke trances and visions used by shamans in the Americas is

known from archaeobotanical analyses, linguistics, primary

historical and ethnographic documents, as well as material

culture that demonstrate altered states of consciousness were

important to the belief systems of past peoples (Wright 2004:404-

405).

Located in the heart of the Aztec capital, the Templo Mayor

was the ultimate symbol for shamanistic rituals. The sacrifices

of the gods were repaid by the elite, who were in turn repaid by

the common people in the form of labor and tribute, in a cycle of

reciprocal obligation. Rituals that were performed by the shaman

on behalf of the populace demonstrated the highly segregated

religious hierarchy of Aztec society. The Templo Mayor was the

single most important religious structure in the Aztec world. The

city of Tenochtitlan radiated out from the sacred temple in an

organized gridiron plan. After the conquest, the Spanish

recognized the importance of the Templo Mayor as a religious

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monument and quickly dismantled and reused some of the stone in

their construction of a cathedral in order to use the symbolic

power of the materials (Guggenheim 2014).

The temple served as an imposing structure in the landscape

that was able to embody the complex organization of Aztec

cosmology as well as the cultural rules and values of Aztec life.

As a symbol of power, the pyramid represented the organization of

the cosmos in its architecture. The temple pyramid represented

the axis mundi, where the sky, the earth, and the underworld met,

and was unequaled in its importance. In our own society, the only

buildings that come close to embodying the same social meaning

would be the Vatican or the White House, because each of these

contemporary examples are symbols for the idea of what they

represent. For Catholics, the Vatican is where God lives in the

world, through the pope. For Americans, the White House is the

symbol of American life and the home of the president. However,

both of these examples only represent a fraction of the meaning

that the Templo Mayor held for the Aztecs.

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Fig. 1 Duran Codex, Human Sacrifice at the Templo Mayor. 1581

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BibliographyCarrasco, David. 1999. City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire And The Role of

Violence In Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press.

Gruzinski, Serge. 1992. Painting the Conquest: The Mexican Indians and the European Renaissance. Paris, France: Unesco.

Guggenheim. Arts Curriculum: The Aztec Empire, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Axis Mundi of the Universe. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Web. accessed 04 May, 2014. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/school-educator-programs/teacher-resources/arts-curriculum online?view=item&catid=720&id=26&tmpl=component&print=1

Guggenheim. 2014. The Aztec Empire Templo Mayor and its Symbolism. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Web. accessed 04 May, 2014. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/school-educator-programs/teacher-resources/arts-curriculum-online?view=item&catid=720&id=27

Klein, Cecilia F. “The Ideology of Autosacrifice at the Templo Mayor” Edited by Boone, Elizabeth Hill. In The Aztec Templo Mayor: a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 8th and 9th October 1983. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987. 293-370.

Smith, Michael Ernest. 2012. The Aztecs. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Wright, Joyce M. 2004. Book Review: Shamanism and the Ancient Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Archaeology by James L. Pearson. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 28(2): 404-406 http://www.jstor.org/stable/41103509

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