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Superstitious? (4)

15th Aug 2016

Superstitious? (4)

Aztec people coughing and sneezing, Florentine Codex

There’s no doubting, the Mexica (Aztecs) were an exceptionally superstitious people. The Appendix of Book 5 of the Florentine Codex is choc-a-bloc full of examples of common superstitions (which the Spanish fobbed off as ‘follies’ and ‘delusions’). Here’s just one, relating to sneezing... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

if you sneezed, it meant that someone far away was talking about you! Not necessarily in a bad way, it could be in a good way - simply that you were being mentioned...

Image from Book 5 of the Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994.

Cuauhtli

Guess what the Aztecs believed jade to be?
The dried bogies of the earth god(dess)!

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Superstitious? (4)

Aztec people coughing and sneezing, Florentine Codex

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