What happened to the Aztec gods after the Conquest? (2) Conclusion

It is difficult to know what happened to the gods in later times. It seems very possible that “parts of them” were absorbed into the Catholic faith, either through the attempts of the missionaries to facilitate the conversion by offering Christian parallels, or the efforts of the Indians to keep them as their own gods under different names. Eventually, in the syncretic [mixed] religion still practiced by many traditional communities today, they became one and the same entity. For example, the invisible and untouchable Tezcatlipoca in his role as “Life-Giver” and “He Who Is Everywhere” came to be fused with the Christian god, as can be seen in the Indians’ devotional song-poems composed after the conquest where Icelteotl (“Only Spirit”, that is the Christian god) and Tloque nahuaque are often called on together in the same sentence.

Pic 2: A plumed eagle, painted on the transept vaulting of the church of San Miguel Arcángel, Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo

The gods of the natural forces are still present, of course, for those forces will always exist. In some communities their names (or similar names) have been retained. Elsewhere, and while it is clear that they are still being called on and thanked, they are not so easy to identify. Some of them did come to be recognised in Christian concepts. For example, in the sixteenth century the tlaloque were already being identified with angels, a belief that still holds today. As noted earlier, the dates of special rituals in honour of these gods, together with the important stages of the maize cycle, were also woven into the Catholic calendar and this system is still in use today. However, this does not necessarily mean that the same gods are being worshipped. Some of their roles and powers may originally have been transferred to other Christian figures. All the saints also have their own histories, features and symbols, some of them drawn directly from the natural world, and these were widely introduced to and spread among the Indians in the sixteenth century and beyond. This would have provided an open door for making matches or associations. However, over the centuries a particular native god and a saint may have become the same entity that is now impossible to distinguish as being either one or the other.

Pic 4: Figure of Jesus flying with eagle’s wings; church in Zacatecas, 1998