Question for October 2019

Yes, the Aztec myth Leyenda de los Soles says that the five worlds were each ruled by a different god, and the various intrigues between them caused imbalance, and brought each “sun” (creation-cycle) to an end. The third such ruler, Chalchiuhtlcue (pronounced Chal-chee-oot-li-kway), was a goddess.
The Leyenda specifies a lot more than the Maya version of the same story, the Popol Vuh. They share many features, like that each Creation improved on the previous ones, but the biggest difference is that the Aztecs had five, and the Maya only list four. And the Aztecs specify the time-span of each one, where the Popol Vuh mysteriously leaves out any mention of how long things took. (Mysterious because every other piece of Mayan literature specifies how long things took, and when they began and ended, to the day. But the Maya also leave out all the “gods” stuff, probably because they wrote the Popol Vuh down after the Conquest, and they didn’t want to annoy their Catholic priests.) I think the myths are a metaphor for all the rises-and-falls of civilisation in history, and Aztec Creation myth adds a “Sun” for the Classic Collapse around 900 AD, the fall of the Maya (and many other civilisations).

The centre ‘piece’ of the Sunstone with first four ‘Suns’ or world eras marked; illustration by Miguel Covarrubias