Question for January 2021

In a word, no. In fact very few people ended up in any heaven at all. Most people just died. There really was no general explanation for what happened to them afterwards. The important thing to remember about the afterlives in Aztec thought is that they had to do with the specific elements of a person’s death, not how they lived their lives. For example, the heaven ruled by the rain deity Tlaloc and his consort Chalchiuhtlicue, was reserved for those who died by drowning or because of lightning strikes. It was called Tlalocan, because Tlaloc was the lord, there. Warriors who died in battle, and women who died in childbirth went to the same heaven. Again, folks went to a given heaven because of the specific events surrounding their deaths, not the nature of their life. Thus, there would be no reason for moving from one afterlife to another, since a person can only die once.

‘Bundle of death’, illustration by Miguel Covarrubias, based on the Codex Magliabechiano fol. 57 (detail)