Notes on the three souls, spirits, animistic entities

These three spirit forces ‘gave the human body extraordinary value, vulnerability and power’ (Carrasco), and the death of an individual would lead to the dispersion of all three... Human blood, incidentally, went to nourish Tlaltecuhtli, the male-female earth deity; but ANY bodily excretion - poo, breath, mucus, semen, saliva, as well as blood - leaving the body (alive or dead) retains within it some element of animistic force.
Life and death were and are inextricable - a belief that encompasses reincarnation but goes some way beyond it: in Furst’s words ‘A man or woman does not die so much as dissolve into constituent parts whose nature is to live, with or without an intact body.’
What ARE those constituent parts, and what happens to each of them after death? All we intend to do here (we already have introductory entries on them around the site - start with the links below) is to indicate the salient points about each one; if anyone seriously wants to learn more about this complex topic, we strongly recommend the sources given at the end...

Pic 1: Parts of the human body; Florentine Codex Book X

• The tonalli sends souls to their final resting place, through the medium of fire, which could break the barrier between human and godly worlds
• Fire is a sacred force, the oldest of the elemental deities (mirrors have magic power since they can reflect the heat of the sun and produce fire)
• Since the body temperature of an infant can fall five degrees within a few hours of birth, a midwife would place a newborn near a fire to warm it, and keep a torch burning for four days; after this time it was safe to expose the baby to the warmth of the sun itself
• Believed to go on a four-day journey after death, wandering around, gathering up its scattered parts
• Can also be seen in precious jewels, rare, beautifully coloured feathers, or in the skins/pelts of animals.

Pic 3: Ritual fire; Florentine Codex Book II

• ‘Once the corpse had been burned [the most common Aztec way to dispose of a dead body] the ashes and fragments of bone were collected in an earthenware vessel or in a stone or wooden box; and, as if to mark the limits of the tonalli during life, there were also included a lock of hair cut from the person’s head during the first days of his life as well as hair taken from the crown of his head following death. After this, the person’s tonalli was deposited in the family home or at the calpulli temple’ (López Austin)
• An effigy of the dead person was often placed with his/her remains, the object being for the effigy to attract the scattered bits of tonalli, which would enter the box to be preserved
• The tonalli stayed on in this way ‘materially forming part of the strength of the family’
• The remains had to receive family offerings at set intervals.

Pic 5: Burning a corpse; Florentine Codex Book III

• Mictlan was a place of uncertainty and mystery. It certainly wasn’t ‘Hell’, though some sources speak of ‘total destruction’; but they also said that the dead would see their ancestors there
• The opposite extreme was the Sky of the Sun, the highest of the 13 ‘heavens’, the destination for warriors, sacrificial victims, mothers dying in childbirth etc.
• At the end of four years of ‘glorious existence’ these souls turned into birds (specifically the yollotototl) and butterflies and returned to earth...
• ... ‘Many of the Uto-Aztecan peoples [and other world cultures] believed that dead souls transmuted into winged beings’ (Furst)
• ‘In the Nahua world view, paradises of leisure did not exist’ (López Austin)
• The teyolia soul could avoid ending up in Mictlan by a person ‘living a life of distinction’ (Carrasco) - in this case ‘a person would be selected by one of the gods who dwelled in another realm of the afterlife’
• In general an accidental death led one’s soul to a more favourable afterlife.

Pic 7: Hearts flow in streams of life-giving blood between earth and the Sun; Codex Laud, plate 18 (detail)

• As with the tonalli, fire ‘served as a vehicle to join the surface of the earth with the path of the travelling teyolia’: it carried tears, prayers and offerings left by relatives on the hearth...
• ... These included everything the teyolia would need on the journey such as warm clothing, money (see above), food, weapons, gifts for the Lord of the Underworld, etc.
• If for some reason (such as in war - and this would have been very common) no corpse was available to the grieving family, an effigy was used through which to send offerings to the soul.

Pic 9: The heart is removed from a sacrificial victim; Tovar Manuscript fol. XXI (detail)

• Breath as energy-force: ‘Corn stored in a granary was refreshed and vitalised by breath, and corn, if breathed upon before being cooked, was enlivened so that it would not be afraid of heat’ (López Austin)
• Equally, sorcerers would breathe on their victims to do them harm!
• ‘Harmful emanations surge forth from a dead person... the dead want to be accompanied... these dreaded entities are attracted by the old belongings of the deceased...’ (López Austin)
• ... Hence the widespread superstitions of the Mexica regarding ghosts and other dangerous spirits of the night.

Furst gives a useful summary of the Mexica approach towards life and death, focusing on the role of the first two animistic entities:-
’Human existence represented a transfer of vital power from the heavens and from warm things, like the sun and fire, first to the human body, growing plants, and all creatures on the earth’s surface. But after death, the human life force went to the underworld.’

Pic 11: The liver dangles from beneath the rib cage of an almost life-size ceramic skeletal figure representing Mictlantecuhtli (Lord of the Underworld), found in the House of the Eagles of the Aztec sacred precinct