Thursday, July 26, 2007

Metaphors of Cyclic Living

The Aztecs honored the circle by recognizing that they lived in reoccurring, cyclic patterns. It was easy to see the cyclic patterns in nature: the sun, the phases of the moon, the seasons. These patterns were also identified in the everyday life of the Aztecs most obviously through the cycle of birth and death. The Aztecs saw transformation as a cyclic pattern as well. "The two basic metaphors for transformation in Ancient Mesoamerica were sexuality and death, because both were seen to result in the creation of life," (Pasztory, 57).
The sexual metaphor was used to explain the seasonal renewal of life. This conclusion comes from combining information from hymns and rituals, because similar to so many of the Aztec myths, there is no one source or story behind most of their beliefs. Even the creation myth varies from one sect of the Aztecs to the next. Here is one collaboration of information pertaining to the sexual metaphors of life:
- The sun god was believed to descend into the earth at the end of the dry season to mate with the earth goddess, who then gave birth to the maize and the other plants that growing the rainy season. The sun god died in the sexual encounter, to be reborn in the form of maize. The earth goddess died subsequently in the process of giving birth, (57).
- the sun god and the earth goddess are basically the Lord and Lady of Duality in the creation myth of the Aztecs. They stand for the Union of male and female principles who were responsible for the eternal renewal of nature (57).

An Aztec poem declares:


The giver of life mock of us
only a dream we chase
oh my friends
our hearth trust
But he really mock of us
but with emotion we enjoy
in the green things and in the paintings
The giver of life make us live
he knows, he rules
how we, the men, will die
nobody, nobody, nobody
really lives on earth.

(Manuscript, Cantares Mexicanos/National Library of Mexico)

(from webpage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ometeotl)


The second metaphor used to explain change was death as a result of armed combat. This notion of war as a metaphor for transformation came from the military aristocracies of the classic period in the Aztec timeline. "It is associated with the development of stratified state societies and the military upper class," (57).

"The disappearance of the sun at night was metaphorically described as a battle between the forces of light and those of the darkness of the earth in which the sun died. The reappearance of the sun in the morning signified its rebirth, after successfully fighting the night,"(57).

Beliefs from older periods of Mesoamerican peoples saw life and death as locked in an endless struggle of alternating victory and defeat. Even the gods were not immune to this cycle, they were not considered immortal.

The cycle of living and dying was also frequently represented by the metaphor of eating. For example, when humans ate maize, it was thought that they were eating the flesh of the actual maize god, and the favor needed to be returned, via human sacrifice. The dead were "eaten" by the earth (which was portrayed as a huge monster). "In the Aztec view, the gods and humans had a contract: they agreed to keep each other alive by providing one another with the appropriate nourishment," (58). The myth that conisides with this contract is as follows:

-"In the fourth destruction of the world, the gods got together at the ruins of Teotihuacan and built a bonfire- the god who would throw himiself in to the fire would become the sun god. One god made many great offerings to the fire but could not throw himself in. Nanahuatizin, who had nothing to offer but himself jumped fearlessly into the fire and became the sun. Ashamed of himself, Tecuciztecatl followed, and became the moon. The sun remained stationary until all of the other gods jumped into the fire," (58).


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