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Throwing bodies down temple steps

11th Nov 2023

Birth of Huitzilopochtli and the defeat of his enemies at Coatepec, Florentine Codex Book III

One of the stereotypes of the Aztecs is the ritual of throwing the corpses of sacrificial victims down the steps of the Templo Mayor, in an act of barbaric and heartless cruelty. In fact this was a sacred reenactment of a key Mexica myth - the birth of their tribal god Huitzilopochtli. It’s told at the very start of Book III (‘The Origin of the Gods’) of the Florentine Codex... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

We quote from Manuel Aguilar-Moreno’s account:-
Huitzilopochtli’s mother was Coatlicue, or She of the Serpent Skirt. Coatlicue, known for her devout nature and virtuous qualities, was at Mt. Coatepec one day, sweeping and tending to her penance, when she discovered a bundle of feathers on the ground. She decided to save them and placed them in her bosom. Without her realising, the feathers impregnated her. Coyolxauhqui, Coatlicue’s daughter, and her 400 brothers, collectively known as the Centzon Huitznahua [Four Hundred Southerners], became enraged when they saw that their mother was pregnant. Prompted by Coyolxauhqui, and in an episode of pure anger and disgrace, they plotted to kill their own mother. Coatlicue, aware of her children’s plans, was consoled and assured by her unborn son. Then, as Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua reached Coatepec to slay their mother, Coatlicue gave birth to Huitzilopochtli. In a move to save his mother, Huitzilopochtli, who was born fully armed, stabbed and beheaded Coyolxauhqui with his ‘xiuhcoatl’, or ‘turquoise serpent’, a sharp weapon.

Her head, in the words of the Codex, ’stopped there at the edge of Coatepetl. And her body came falling down; it fell breaking to pieces; in various places her arms, her legs, her body each fell.
’And Huitzilopochtli then arose; he pursued, gave full attention to the Centzon Huitznahua; he plunged, he scattered them from the top of Coatepetl...’
It’s well known that the Templo Mayor, the main temple in Tenochtitlan, was a symbolic reconstruction of Coatepetl (‘Snake Mountain’), and that the huge stone monument to Coyolxauhqui, discovered by chance by workmen on February 21st. 1978, graphically symbolised the goddess’s fate at the hands of her brother.

Karl Taube takes up the story:-
’Although her head and limbs are severed from her bleeding torso, she appears in a dynamic and almost running pose, as if portrayed in the instant of tumbling down Coatepec [Coatepetl]. Excavations soon revealed that the Coyolxauhqui stone lay at the base of the stairway on the Huitzilopochtli side of the Templo Mayor. In other words, each sacrificed human prisoner thrown down the temple stairs in Aztec rituals re-enacted the killing of Coyolxauhqui at Coatepec’ (emphasis added).
Davíd Carrasco takes the meaning of the story further: Huitzilopochtli attacks and sacrifices nearly all the other deities in the drama. ‘It is a myth not just about one sacrifice, but about a sudden increment in human sacrifices to include innumerable warriors who come to the Templo Mayor/Coatepec from the distant regions of the Aztec world...

‘The Templo Mayor and related actions located at the heart of the city and empire represent the dramatic cosmic victory of Huitzilopochtli and the Aztecs over the celestial and terrestrial enemies. When victims ascended the Great Temple dressed in plumes, were forced to dance in symbolic ecstasy, and were sacrificed before being thrown down the steps of the temple, a ritual repetition was being performed to reenact a mythic beginning that told of the systematic, violent destruction of gods from the periphery. This [text] provided a model of violence for the institution of ritual authority that resided at Coatepec.’

Sources/references:-
• Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (2006) Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Facts on File, New York
• Carrasco, Davíd (1999) City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilisation, Beacon Press, Boston
• Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino Sahagún, Book 3 - The Origin of the Gods, (1978) trans. Arthur J.O. Anderson & Charles E. Dibble, School of American Research/University of Utah, Santa Fe
• Taube, Karl (1993) Aztec and Maya Myths, British Museum Press.

Picture sources:-
• Main: images from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994 (NOTE: in the main images here, the top picture shows the birth of Huitzilopochtli and the bottom one the defeat of his enemies at Coatepec)
• Pic 1: photo from Wikipedia (Coyolxauhqui), stored at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía (MAF) de la Ciudad de México
• Pic 2: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 3: illustration © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Aztec limerick no. 55 (ode to Coatepetl):-
The violent birth of their deities
Explains in part what you say it is;
The body-throwing ritual
Is the horrible bit you all
Call just their lust for depravities...

Aztecs

Maya

Throwing bodies down temple steps

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