Tamōhuānchān is a mythical location of origin known to the

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

n cultures of the central Mexican region in the Late Postclassic period. In the mythological traditions and creation accounts of Late Postclassic peoples such as the

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

, Tamoanchan was conceived as a

paradise In religion and folklore, paradise is a place of everlasting happiness, delight, and bliss. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical, eschatological, or both, often contrasted with the miseries of human ...

where the gods created the first of the present human race out of sacrificed blood and ground human bones which had been stolen from the Underworld of Mictlan.

Name

According to a figurative etymology in the ''Florentine Codex'' of Sahagún (bk. 10, ch. 29, para. 14), "Tamoanchan probably means "We go down to our home". The word ''tamoanchan'' does not actually come from the

Nahuatl language 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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

s, but is instead demonstrated to have its roots in Mayan etymology, with a meaning which could be glossed as "place of the misty sky", or similar. Descriptions of Tamoanchan appearing in the Florentine Codex indicate that the Postclassic

Nahua The Nahuas ( ) are a Uto-Nahuan ethnicity and one of the Indigenous people of Mexico, with Nahua minorities also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest Indigenous group in Mexico, as well as ...

s thought of it being located in the humid lowlands region of the

Gulf Coast of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

, inhabited by the Huastec Maya people.

Depiction in codices

When depicted in

Aztec codices Aztec codices ( , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico. Most of their content is pictorial in nature and they come from ...

Tamoanchan is frequently associated with the ''

trecena A trecena (From Spanish: trece) is a 13-day period used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican calendars. The 260-day Mayan calendar (the '' tonalpohualli'') was divided into 20 trecenas. Trecena is derived from the Spanish chroniclers and translates to ...

'' 1 Calli in the

Aztec calendar The Aztec or Mexica calendar is the calendar, calendrical system used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian era, Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of Mexico, peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the bas ...

. This is "''trecena'' 15 in the Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin". The deity Itzpapalotl, one of the main '' tzitzimime'' figures ("star demons"), commonly presides over this trecena, and by extension Tamoanchan is often considered as part of her dominion. The

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for ...

ic glyph used for Tamoanchan in the

codices The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

depicts a cleft tree, flowering and emitting blood; these motifs is the reference of the event when sexual transgression was committed in the paradise, causing the tree of life to be cut as described in the Codex Chimalpopoca. Besides being cleft, the two portions of the Tamoanchan-tree thus separated sometimes bear striping in opposite directions (as, in ''Codex Borgia'' 44) such that "their diagonal position ... indicates the internal helicoidal movement." Thus, helical rotations in two opposite directions would appear to be indicated.

Historic, earthly location

Besides the mythical Tamoanchan, Mexican historian and

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

of Mesoamerican belief systems Alfredo López Austin identifies several sacred sites that were historical localities associated with Tamoanchan. According to López Austin the three Tamoanchans located on earth were:

1) the Tamoanchan in Cuauhnahuac;
2) Tamoanchan Chalchiuhmomozco mentioned by Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (... where Chalco Amaquemecan was later established); and
3) the Tamoanchan ... mentioned in Sahagún's work."

The first of these was where the first man and woman of the new re-peoplement were created (by Ehecatl), the "new Tamoanchan cave in the Province of Cuernavaca, actually Cuauhnahuac". The second of these was "a fountain ... in which they saw a goddess and which they called ''chalchiuhmatlalatl'' ("blue-green waters of chalchihuite ...") on a small hill next to Iztactepetl and Popocatepetl. ... Tamoanchan Chalchiuhmomozco was so sacred that no one could defecate there. The settlers had to travel four leagues to relieve themselves at a place called Cuitlatepec, or Cuitlatetelco, but, since they were great magicians, they flew there."

Otomi The Otomi (; ) are an Indigenous people of Mexico inhabiting the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region. The Otomi are an Indigenous people of the Americas who inhabit a discontinuous territory in central Mexico. They are linguistically rel ...

, "Mayonikha is so sacred that no one can defecate" thereat.] The third was the site where "the learned men, ... Tlaltecuin, and Xuchicahuaca, ... invented new sacred books, the count of destiny, the book of years, and the book of dreams."See López Austin (1997, p.55). See also ''Ibid.'', at p.283 7

Notes

References

* * * *Garibay, Angel María : ''Poesía nahuatl''. México : UNAM, 1964–1968. 3 vols ited by volume and page {{Heaven Conceptions of heaven Places in Aztec mythology Places in Mesoamerican mythology