Tamoanchan- Aztec LocationLocation · Realm"Place of the Misty Sky"

The Place of the Misty Sky

Tamoanchan lay beyond ordinary geography. The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas placed it in the west; other sources pointed east, or among the clouds, or beyond the sea. It could not be mapped because it existed before the world was ordered into directions. Mist hung in its air. Flowers bloomed without wilting. At the center stood a great flowering tree whose blossoms were the source of all life, and Xochiquetzal, goddess of beauty and flowers, dwelt there as its keeper, attended by hummingbirds and wreathed in the scent of gardens that had no walls.

The Birth of Humanity

After the Fourth Sun was destroyed and darkness covered the world, Quetzalcoatl descended to Mictlan to retrieve the bones of previous humanity. He escaped with his prize, though quail sent by Mictlantecuhtli startled him and the bones shattered in the fall. He carried the fragments upward to Tamoanchan.

There the goddess Cihuacoatl ground the shattered bones to fine powder in a jade bowl, as one grinds maize, until no fragment remained larger than dust. The gods gathered around this substance and pierced their own flesh, letting their blood flow over the bone meal until the dry powder became wet and warm. From this mixture of death and divine sacrifice, the first humans of the Fifth Sun took form and drew breath. The Leyenda de los Soles records that the varying sizes of the bone fragments shaped them into different heights and builds. Each body carried the mark of having been broken.

The Flowering Tree

As long as the great tree at Tamoanchan's center stood whole, paradise held. Xochiquetzal reached for a blossom on the forbidden tree and plucked it. The trunk cracked open and bled sap like a wound.

For this transgression, the gods were expelled. Tlaloc took dominion over the waters. Mictlantecuhtli retreated to the ninth underworld level to preside over the dead. Quetzalcoatl, who had carried humanity's bones upward from Mictlan, moved between the mortal world and the heavens as the wind. The separation of heaven and earth, the distance between gods and mortals, the necessity of blood to bridge that distance: all of it began with the cracking of the tree.

The Nursing Tree

Tamoanchan was where each new soul originated before birth. The tonalli, the spark of soul-heat that animated every living person, descended from this paradise to inhabit mortal bodies. Artisans, musicians, and painters worshipped Xochiquetzal as their patroness because their creative fire was a remnant of Tamoanchan's original abundance, first given in that place where all beautiful things had their source.

Infants who died before tasting maize returned directly to Tamoanchan rather than making the long descent through Mictlan's nine levels. Near the great tree stood another: Chichihuacuauhco, the nursing tree, whose branches dripped with milk to sustain these tiny souls until they could be reborn into the living world. The Florentine Codex describes this fate: a return to the mist and the flowers and the sound of birds, to wait beneath a tree that would not let them go hungry.