Chicomoztoc () is the name for the mythical origin place of the Aztec Mexicas,

Tepanec The Tepanecs or Tepaneca are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in the late 12th or early 13th centuries.The dates vary by source, including 1152 CE in Anales de Tlatelolco, 1210 from Chimalpahin, and 1226 from Ixtlilxoch ...

Acolhua The Acolhua are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in or around the year 1200 CE. The Acolhua were a sister culture of the Aztecs (or Mexica) as well as the Tepanec, Chalca, Xochimilca and others. The most important poli ...

s, and other

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

-speaking peoples (or

Nahua The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

s) of the central Mexico region of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

, in the

Postclassic In Human history, world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically and develop ...

period. The term Chicomoztoc derives from

''chicome'' (“seven”), ''oztotl'' (“cave”), and -''c'' (“place”). In symbolic terms these caves within a hill have been compared to the wombs from which the various peoples were born; another possible association is with the seven orifices of the human body. In either case, this term is associated with the origin, birth, or beginning of a group of people, both mythic and historical. There is an association of Chicomoztoc with certain legendary traditions concerning Culhuacan (''Colhuacan''), an actual

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

settlement in the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...

which was considered to have been one of the earliest and most pre-eminent settlements in the valley. Culhuacan (''"place of those with ancestors"'' is its literal meaning in

Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl (also known simply as Aztec or Nahuatl) is any of the variants of Nahuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a ''lingua franca'' at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the s ...

) was viewed as a prestigious and revered place by the Aztec/Mexica (who also styled themselves 'Culhua-Mexica'). In Aztec codical writing, the symbol or glyph representing the toponym of Culhuacan took the form of a 'bent' or 'curved' hill (a play on the homonym ''col-'' in Nahuatl, meaning "bent, twisted", e.g. as if by old age). Some researchers have attempted to identify Chicomoztoc with a specific geographic location, likely between 60 and 180 miles northeast of the

including perhaps a height near the present-day town of San Isidro Culhuacan. The purported existence of actual caves plays a role in New Age

Mayanism Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples. Contemporary Mayanism places less emphasis on contacts between the ancient ...

Cerro Culiacán

In the State of Guanajuato the highest mountain is "El Cerro de Culiacán" and is surrounded by all the signs that correspond to the measure and chronicles of the legendary Chicomoztoc.

In fiction

In Clive Cussler's novel '' Lost Empire'', Chicomoztoc is discovered to be an island in

South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sula ...

, Indonesia, from where the ancestors of the Aztec were exiled sometime in the 6th century.Lost Empire, pp. 312-3, 318

References

External links

* Locations in Aztec mythology Locations in Mesoamerican mythology {{mesoamerica-stub

Cerro Culiacán

In fiction

See also

References

External links