Tamoanchan is a mythical location of origin known to the

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. Wit ...

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 culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

, Tamoanchan was conceived as a

paradise In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in para ...

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 Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

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 The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''Th ...

indicate that the Postclassic Nahuas thought of it being located in the humid lowlands region of the

Gulf Coast of Mexico The Gulf Coast of Mexico or East Coast of Mexico stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from the border between Mexico and the United States at Matamoros, Tamaulipas all the way to the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula at Cancún. It includes the coast ...

, inhabited by the Huastec Maya people.

Depiction in codices

When depicted in

Aztec codices Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico. History Before the start of the Sp ...

Tamoanchan is frequently associated with the ''

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

'' 1 Calli in the Aztec calendar. This is "''trecena'' 15 in the Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin". The deity Itzpapalotl, one of the main ''

tzitzimime In Aztec mythology, a Tzitzimitl (plural Tzitzimimeh ) is a monstrous deity associated with stars. They were depicted as skeletal female figures wearing skirts often with skull and crossbones designs. In postconquest descriptions they are often de ...

'' 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 ''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 a proper name of ...

ic glyph used for Tamoanchan in the

codices The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

depicts a cleft tree, flowering and emitting blood; the significance of these motifs is uncertain. 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 pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

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,_"Mayonikha_is_so_sacred_that_no_one_can_defecate"_thereat..html" ;"title="Otomi_people.html" ;"title="ikewise for the Otomi people">Otomi, "Mayonikha is so sacred that no one can defecate" thereat.">Otomi_people.html" ;"title="ikewise for the Otomi people">Otomi, "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 [17].

Notes

References

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