Question for December 2023

The straightforward answer is that we don’t know for certain. Technically, the goods you carried with you into the underworld would affect your fate. However, what if we look to other areas of Aztec culture for a different perspective?
The manner of your death determined your afterlife fate, and for the majority of Aztecs this involved a perilous journey through the underworld to the realm of the deities Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl. As the question mentions, deceased persons were offered gifts to aid them through their trials on this journey. These gifts would be presented by relatives and presumably friends (and political allies in the case of exalted rulers).

Pic 1: ‘Those who sleep destitute’, Florentine Codex Book 6

To take one example, rituals involving newborn babies required the presentation of gifts: nobles were expected to bring precious clothing, less-wealthy persons presented more ordinary clothing, and a poor person brought food and pulque, but not clothing (Sahagún 1950-82, Book 6: 196). This suggests a recognition of the reality of wealth differences; apparently making offerings based on one’s “ability to pay” was accepted and expected. Perhaps the same attitude pertained to funerary offerings in sending deceased persons on their way without excessive concern, regardless of their social and economic status. Still, it is clear that rulers and other high-status and wealthy individuals enjoyed privileges in life, and through grand offerings probably expected special treatment in their underworld journey.

Pic 3: Model of a poor commoner’s hut (‘choza’), 200-600 CE, from Colima, West Mexico; Centro INAH Jalisco