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Aztec Religion
The Aztec religion is a polytheistic and monistic pantheism in which the Nahua concept of '' teotl'' was construed as the supreme god Ometeotl, as well as a diverse pantheon of lesser gods and manifestations of nature. The popular religion tended to embrace the mythological and polytheistic aspects, and the Aztec Empire's state religion sponsored both the monism of the upper classes and the popular heterodoxies. The most important deities were worshiped by priests in Tenochtitlan, particularly Tlaloc and the god of the Mexica, Huitzilopochtli, whose shrines were located on Templo Mayor. Their priests would receive special dispensation from the empire. When other states were conquered the empire would often incorporate practices from its new territories into the mainstream religion. In common with many other indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations, the Aztecs put great ritual emphasis on calendrics, and scheduled festivals, government ceremonies, and even war around key tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aztec Mythology
Aztec mythology is the body or collection of myths of the Aztec civilization of Central Mexico. The Aztecs were a culture living in central Mexico and much of their mythology is similar to that of other Mesoamerican cultures. According to legend, the various groups who became the Aztecs arrived from the North into the Valley of Mexico, Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec. There are different accounts of their origin. In the myth, the ancestors of the Mexica/Aztec were one of seven groups that came from a place in the north called Aztlan, to make the journey southward, hence their name "Azteca." Other accounts cite their origin in Chicomoztoc, "the place of the seven caves", or at Tamoanchan (the legendary origin of all civilizations). The Mexica/Aztec were said to be guided by their war-god Huitzil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of veneration of the dead, dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribe, tribal societies are human cannibalism, cannibalism and headhunting. Human sacrifice is also known as ritual murder. Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, and came to be looked down upon as barbarian, barbaric during classical antiquity. In the New World, Americas, however, human sacrifice cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xipe Totec
In Aztec mythology, Xipe Totec (; ) or XipetotecRobelo 1905, p. 768. ("Our Lord the Flayed One") was a life-death-rebirth deity, god of agriculture, vegetation, the east, spring, goldsmiths, silversmiths, liberation, deadly warfare, the seasons, and the earth. The female equivalent of Xipe Totec was the goddess Xilonen- Chicomecoatl. Xipe Totec connected agricultural renewal with warfare. He flayed himself to give food to humanity, symbolic of the way maize seeds lose their outer layer before germination and of snakes shedding their skin. He is often depicted as being red beneath the flayed skin he wears, likely referencing his own flayed nature. Xipe Totec was believed by the Aztecs to be the god that invented war. His insignia included the pointed cap and rattle staff, which was the war attire for the Mexica emperor. He had a temple called Yopico within the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan.Miller & Taube 1993, 2003, p.188. Xipe Totec is associated with pimples, inflammation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fertility God
A fertility deity is a god or goddess associated with fertility, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and crops. In some cases these deities are directly associated with these experiences; in others they are more abstract symbols. Fertility rites may accompany their worship. The following is a list of fertility deities. African * Ala, Igbo goddess of fertility * Asase Ya, Ashanti earth goddess of fertility * Deng, Dinka sky god of rain and fertility * Mbaba Mwana Waresa, Zulu goddess of fertility, rainbows, agriculture, rain, and bees * Orie, Ohafia goddess of fertility * Oshun (known as ''Ochún'' or ''Oxúm'' in Latin America) also spelled Ọṣun, is an orisha, a spirit, a deity, or a goddess that reflects one of the manifestations of God in the Ifá and Yoruba religions. She is one of the most popular and venerated orishas. Oshun is the deity of the river and fresh water, luxury and pleasure, sexuality and fertility, and beauty and love. She is connected to destiny and divinat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an ''encomienda'' (the right to the labor of certain subjects). For a short time, he served as ''alcalde'' (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. His enmity with the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cué ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moctezuma II
Moctezuma Xocoyotzin . ( – 29 June 1520), retroactively referred to in European sources as Moctezuma II, and often simply called Montezuma,Other variant spellings include Moctezuma, Motewksomah, Motecuhzomatzin, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma, Motēuczōmah and Muteczuma was the ninth emperor of the Aztec Empire (also known as the Mexica Empire), reigning from 1502 or 1503 to 1520. Through his marriage with Queen Tlapalizquixochtzin of Ecatepec, one of his two wives, he was also the king consort of that ''altepetl''. The first contact between the indigenous civilizations of Mesoamerica and Europeans took place during his reign. He was killed during the initial stages of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire when Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador, and his men seized the Aztecs, Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. During his reign, the Aztec Empire reached its greatest size. Through warfare, Moctezuma expanded the territory as far south as Soconusco, Xoconosco in Chiapas and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mana (Oceanian Mythology)
In Melanesian and Polynesian cultures, ''mana'' is a supernatural force that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have ''mana''. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being a source of power. It is an intentional force. ''Mana'' has been discussed mostly in relation to cultures of Polynesia, but also of Melanesia, notably the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In the 19th century, scholars compared ''mana'' to similar concepts such as the '' orenda'' of the Iroquois Indians and theorized that ''mana'' was a universal phenomenon that explained the origin of religions. Etymology The reconstructed Proto-Oceanic word *mana is thought to have referred to "powerful forces of nature such as thunder and storm winds" rather than supernatural power. As the Oceanic-speaking peoples spread eastward, the word started to refer instead to unseen supernatural powers. Polynesian culture ''Mana'' is a foundation of Polynesian theology, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teotl
Teōtl () is a Nahuatl term for sacredness or divinity that is sometimes translated as "god". For the Aztecs was the metaphysical omnipresence upon which their religious philosophy was based. As described by James Maffie, "is essentially power: continually active, actualized, and actualizing energy-in-motion... It is an ever-continuing process, like a flowing river... It continually and continuously generates and regenerates as well as permeates, encompasses and shapes reality as part of an endless process. It creates the cosmos and all its contents ''from within'' itself as well as ''out of'' itself." This is conceptualized in a kind of monistic pantheism as manifest in the supreme god , as well as a large pantheon of lesser gods and idealizations of natural phenomena such as stars and fire. Similar concepts to existed elsewhere in Mesoamerica at the time of the conquest, such as in the Zapotec term or the Maya or . Such immaterial energy can also be compared to the Polyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Conquest Of The Aztec Empire
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was a pivotal event in the history of the Americas, marked by the collision of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Spanish Empire. Taking place between 1519 and 1521, this event saw the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, and his small army of European soldiers and numerous indigenous allies, overthrowing one of the most powerful empires in Mesoamerica. Led by the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II, the Aztec Empire had established dominance over central Mexico through military conquest and intricate alliances. Because the Aztec Empire ruled via hegemonic control by maintaining local leadership and relying on the psychological perception of Aztec power — backed by military force — the Aztecs normally kept subordinate rulers compliant. This was an inherently unstable system of governance, as this situation could change with any alteration in the status quo. A combination of factors including superior weaponry, strategic alliances with oppresse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker and denser than Earth and any other rocky body in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is composed of mostly carbon dioxide (), with a global sulfuric acid cloud cover and no liquid water. At the mean surface level the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Moon and the Sun, and, like Mercury, appears always relatively close to the Sun, either as a "morning star" or an "evening star", resulting from orbiting closer ( inferior) to the Sun than Earth. The orbits of Venus and Earth make the two planets approach each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period (Lunar month#Synodic month, lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days. This is the product of Earth's gravitation having tidal forces, tidally pulled on the Moon until one part of it stopped rotating away from the near side of the Moon, near side, making always the same lunar surface face Earth. Conversley, the gravitational pull of the Moon, on Earth, is the main driver of Earth's tides. In geophysical definition of planet, geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is , roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is the List of Solar System objects by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical Object
An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists within the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms ''object'' and ''body'' are often used interchangeably. However, an astronomical body or celestial body is a single, tightly bound, contiguous entity, while an astronomical or celestial ''object'' is a complex, less cohesively bound structure, which may consist of multiple bodies or even other objects with substructures. Examples of astronomical objects include planetary systems, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies, while asteroids, moons, planets, and stars are astronomical bodies. A comet may be identified as both a body and an object: It is a ''body'' when referring to the frozen nucleus of ice and dust, and an ''object'' when describing the entire comet with its diffuse coma and tail. History Astronomical objects such as stars, planets, nebulae, aster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
