Robert Diaz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
For certain, it is known that there are four places that occupied the cosmogony of the ancient Aztecs: The House of the Sun in Teotihuacan; the House of the Warrior Women and the Maize God: CincalcoThe Tlalocán or Paradise of the God of Water, and the Mictlan or "place where the dead dwell".
These points correspond to the four cardinal points but, unlike the western vision, there is a center on its three cosmic planes called the Omeyocan where the creative couple resides: OmeteóltIn the centre of this central plane is the Huehuetéolt and, at the bottom of these planes, the lord of the underworld: Mictlantecuhtli and his kingdom which is the Mictlan or place of the dead.
This place is a spacious, windowless place from which you can neither leave nor return, it is the place of the damaged, the house of darkness: the Yoa ichan or house of the night, the Yoalli ichan region of mystery, the Ximoayanwhere the fleshless are.
To enter this site, one had to pass through different pesares that were generally located towards the north; however, it is believed that they thought that there were also four entrances ?in relation to the four cardinal points and there was also a fifth one that was located in the center? Tlaxiccobut it was also common to hear that this main entrance into the darkness was at the western point in the cave of Cincalcoo Cicalco which, as we mentioned before, was the entrance of the warrior women, the same direction where you see them disappearing every afternoon into the sun and where they live Tótec Chicahua and Huemán.
The way to get there was mysterious and full of sorrows, but those who died were prepared, according to Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, their heads were wet and they were buried with a jug of water because they had to go through:
- First of all, because of two mountain ranges that are meeting each other.
- Then, by a place where a snake is waiting for them.
- Later, where the green lizard called Xochitónal.
- Then, through eight moors.
- Next, through eight hills.
- Next, where the cold wind cuts like razors.
- Later, by the Rio Chiconahuapán and cross it on the back of a dog Xoloescuincle.
- Before finishing, by the place where the offerings due to Mictlantecuhtli.
- And after four years, the nine hells: Chicunaumictlán.
The gods that inhabit the underworld are like most Aztec gods, a duality made up of a male and a female god: Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacíhuatl. From the chroniclers, it is known that his scepter is made of precious objects such as bones, skulls and ribs, and that, from them, he used Quetzalcoatl when he went down to the Mictlan to forge the dust from which human beings would be formed.
As messengers they had the Yaotequihua ?messenger of the God and Goddess of Hell?, which are the tecolotes and owls which if they appeared in the bed or around the sick and that was an unmistakable sign that they would die.
The Mictecas were the agents of the underworld, who were in charge of preventing that whoever stepped on that realm could not leave. In addition, there were inferior beings dedicated to inhabit the suburbs of the underworld who had various functions that are mentioned and were presented as partners in their lordships: the Ixputequewho has a broken foot; Nexoxóchitlthe one who throws flowers; Nextepehua who blinds with ashes; Micapletacalli which is the dead man's box; Tzontémoc which is the one who falls on his head; Chalmecacíhuatlor the sacrificial and Acolnahuácatl that of the crooked region.
To Mictlan All those who died of illness, whether they were princes, lords or macehuals, those who did not die in war, those who died through sacrifices to the gods, even less those warrior women who died in childbirth - considered almost goddesses - did not go there; neither did those who died by drowning or by some event related to water or burned by lightning, as well as lepers. Those who died by fire did not go there.
They thought that the paths taken by the souls of the dead did not depend on their behavior in life, but on the type of death they had gone through. The Mictlan, rather than being a punishment for sin, was a way of purification through which the souls found eternal rest, and one where there was no room for social differences as on Earth.
