Article suitable for older students

The fate of your tonalli after death

27th Nov 2019

The fate of your {italictonalli} after death

Separation of souls after death, Codex Laud

We know the Mexica believed in human beings having three souls or spiritual forces, in the concept of 13 ‘heavens’ and 9 underworlds, and in the idea that two of the souls leave the body immediately on dying (follow links below for more on these), but what happened to the tonalli - the warm energy (from the Sun) located in the head, linked to your destiny in life - after death? (Written by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

In this all-important image from the Codex Laud (main picture and pic 1), most scholars believe it shows the separation of the three ‘animistic forces’ or souls upon death. The serpent leaving the crown of the head could well be the tonalli, characterised by some as ‘shadow’, the one with the wind god’s head and arm springing from the heart the teyolia or ‘spirit’, and the third from the stomach the ihiyotl or ‘night wind’. The main trunk of the body in skeletal form falls back, bereft of its spirit forces. The teyolia carries the essential spirit of the individual to her or his final resting place (whether above or below the earth), normally through the medium of fire; the ihiyotl escapes from the body in gaseous form (think of the smells of decomposing bodies) and could then float around earth as ghosts or phantoms. But what of the tonalli?

For the ancient Nahuas, the tonalli was fragmentary in nature: elements of it could be left by an individual in different places during his/her lifetime; some of it could ‘stick’ to parts of the body that grow quickly and need to be cut (back) such as fingernails or hair. It could leave and return to the body during illness, or in moments of fright/danger - from dreams to a simple sneeze that shakes the body violently. It was implanted in the foetus prior to birth by the divine breath of the supreme creator couple. After death this ‘animistic entity’ was believed to go on a journey, ‘gathering up its scattered portions’. The family of the deceased could aid this process by creating a small wooden effigy of the individual and placing it in a box containing his/her mortal remains (bones, ashes...) together with a lock of hair cut from the person’s head as a newborn baby and another from the scalp at the end of life. The effigy and the hair locks would attract the scattered portions of tonalli, to be conserved in the wooden or stone box.

‘The tonalli stayed on in this way, materially forming part of the strength of the family, a force that could be revitalised... [as long as] the forefathers’ names were repeated in the [family’s] descendants.’

Main source:-
• The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of the Ancient Nahuas by Alfredo López Austin, translated by Thelma and Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, Vol. 1, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1988.

Image sources:-
• Main pic: image from the Codex Laud scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1966
• Pic 1: original drawing (unannotated) scanned from López Austin, op. cit.
• Pic 2: image from the Codex Mendoza scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, Waterlow, London, 1938
• Pic 3: source unknown, from Mexicolore archives.

Guess...

...how long it took for the soul to reach the highest ‘heaven’ (Sky of the Sun)?

Find out

‘Aztec Concepts of the Human Body (1)’‘Aztec Hell - Christian Mictlan’

Comments (2)

Frey the Great

15th Sep 2021

Thank you so much for giving us Alfredo’s interpretation of what I believed to be was a mystery. Until now I finally realized what this really meant. Wow thank you and Alfredo Lopez so much. I don’t think you guys understand how thankful I am. There is a group out running around social media giving totally different and misinterpretations of this image. They’re saying this is representing Chakras from the Hindu Religion.

OLEG

27th Apr 2020

The image is misinterpreted in this article. What is indicated in the drawing as “tonalli” and “teolia” are two parts of one whole, with the head of an echecatl and the tail of a snake. The second part is apparently, the “spine” that is probably connected to the part marked “ihiyotl”in the drawing. This “ihiyotl” seems to be the “tail” of that part of the spine. The tail in the form of a snake’s head, obviously goes back to the image of a two-headed snake. And in my opinion, there is a division of the human body into two parts, not three.

Mexicolore

Thanks for this. You may well be right. We’ve done our best to interpret the image based on the information in Alfredo López Austin’s book, but will seek further clarification...!
(May 1st 2020) We’ve now received the following comment from Professor López Austin; we provide our own translation below his answer:-
’Contesto a OLEG que se me hace interesante su interpretación; pero que sigo viendo que de un cuerpo central se desprenden tres figuras serpentiformes y, en la parte trasera, una columna vertebral con cráneo. Las tres figuras serpentinas rematan: dos de ellas en cabezas de serpientes y una de ella con cabeza de Quetzalcóatl-Ehécatl. Interpreto la terminada en la cabeza del dios como teyolía, porque fue Quetzalcóatl el que formó a los hombres y su alma esencial (humana) a partir de su propia sangre.’
’I find OLEG’s interpretation interesting, but I still see emerging from a single central body three serpentine figures, and, from the rear, a vertebral column with skull. The three serpentine figures end: two in snake heads and one in the head of Quetzalcóatl-Ehécatl. I interpret the one that ends with the god’s head as teyolía, because it was Quetzalcóatl who created humankind and its human soul-essence from his own blood.’

Separation of souls after death, Codex Laud