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The ‘Day of the Dead’ festival

DID THE AZTECS BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER DEATH?
Definitely! You can’t have one without the other... Life gives way to death and the opposite: when you die your body and spirit nourish the Earth and provide roots for new life (like a flower) to be born.

So many graves have been found all over Mexico with goods in them that obviously ancient Mexicans believed in life after death for thousands of years. Maybe death was a relief from the harshness and suffering of this life...

DID THEY BELIEVE IN HEAVEN? Yes - 13 of them!
But most people had to make a hard, 4-year journey below the earth to reach their final resting place, Mictlan. This really was... the end of the road! It was ruled by the Lord of Mictlan, who does look kind of grimbo...

If you died as a warrior in battle, or as a victim of human sacrifice, or as a mother in childbirth, or as a merchant killed on a trading expedition, you would have gone to one of the highest heavens, and been a companion to the Sun God, accompanying him every morning.

DID THEY BELIEVE IN A SOUL? Yes - 3 of them! One in your heart, one in your brain, one in your liver. Only the spirit in your heart travelled to the afterlife; the one in your brain stayed on earth to be kept by your family as ashes in a box with a tuft of your hair.

DID THE AZTECS HAVE THEIR OWN ‘DAY OF THE DEAD’? Yes, several... Many of the things they shared in those festivals - candles, food and drink, offerings, music and dancing, incense and paper ornaments, yellow flowers - are still at the heart of the great Day of the Dead Festival in Mexico today.