Mictlan and its inhabitants

10th Apr 2023

Mexicolore contributor Ignacio de la Garza

We’re sincerely grateful to Ignacio de la Garza Gálvez for writing this introduction to Mictlan. Ignacio has a Degree in History, a Master’s Degree in Mesoamerican Studies and is currently undertaking a History doctorate at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He teaches Mexican Literature I and II (Náhuatl and Mayan) and Literature and Popular Indigenous Culture in the Philosophy and Letters Faculty of UNAM.

The ancient Nahuas believed that death wasn’t the end of existence but rather a moment of transformation. Humanity had been created by gods to labour, and being dead was no reason to cease labouring… The manner of one’s death would determine the place where each individual would go, to begin the process of transformation and to start undertaking new roles, and this destination depended wholly on the gods’ decision, influenced by the merits of the person in question before society and the gods. Besides, each life was fashioned by the gods and by the influences left by them as they passed through the world.
The abodes of the gods, where the dead might go to join them and continue labouring were several. Those chosen by the Sun (having died in battle, in sacrifice, in giving birth or on a trading expedition) or by the gods of earth and water (having died through water-related illnesses, drowned, suffered accidents on mountains or struck by lightning) would go, respectively, to Tonatiuh ichan, the House of the Sun (pic 2), or to Tlalocan, the Place of Tlaloc (pic 3), where, despite working, they would live joyfully.

Those who committed suicide would go to Cincalco, ‘(in) the house of maize’, where Huémac (last great king of the Toltecs) lived (pic 5); infants who died while still breast-fed by their mothers would repair to Chichihualcuauhco, ‘the place of the tree with breasts’ (pic 4), where they would be nourished until they could be sent again to be born on earth; finally, for everyone else there was Mictlan, ‘the place of the dead’, conceived of as a mysterious place inhabited by ancestors and where people were ‘as if hidden’, a dark place about which there was much talk and many echoes of ancient traditions surviving, but almost nothing was known. Although these dwelling places are often differentiated in chronicles and colonial sources, they appear not to be that separate from each other, being described in similar terms or even mixed up, and maintaining a broad connection between them and the world of the living (see de la Garza, 2017).

Mictlan, ‘the place of the dead’
The destination for most individuals, unless chosen by the gods to go elsewhere, was Mictlan. Those who died of old age or common illnesses (not associated with a particular god) would end up here (those who died in accidents would probably repair to Tlalocan). Some writers, such as Michel Graulich and Alfredo López Austin, suggest that everyone had to pass through Mictlan, where they would then ‘break up’, the remains of their bones-seeds to be re-used, whilst those chosen to go to other abodes would leave and await further transformation (Graulich, 1990: 120-125, 291-292; López Austin, 1994: 168, 219-222; Ragot, 2000: 43).

In ancient texts the Nahua referred to death in several ways in terms of a specific destination. We find Tocenchan, ‘our only house’; Tocenpopolihuiyan, ‘the common place where we go to disappear’; Quenamican or Quenonamican, ‘where there is some kind of existence’ or ‘where somehow we find ourselves’; Huilohuayan, ‘the place we all go to’; Xi”ohuayan, ‘the place of the fleshless’, Mictlantli, ‘the place of the injured’, Yohua ichan, ‘house of darkness’; Yohualli ichan, ‘house of night’; Apochquiahuayocan, atlecallocan, ‘place without chimney, without house’.
To die was to enter the unknown, the dark. It was said of those who had died that ‘our lord [of the near and far] has placed and hidden them, away from this world’ (Sahagún Bk 6). Besides, it was a place where those who went there would not be seen again:-

‘And those who already have gone to remain beyond, who briefly, for a day, came to behold one, the old men, the old women whom our lord hath destroyed, whom he hath hidden, those who have departed, those who have gone to reside in the water, in the cave, those who have gone to reside in the land of the dead, where they lie resting: verily are they perchance now still concerned? For they have all departed, not even for a little while to come forth. Yet may it still be in their presence that with a word or two they might exhort you.’ (Sahagún Bk 6, chapter 24).
In turn, the departed would be ignorant of the world of the living:-
‘In their absence are they perchance still informed? For our lord hath placed them in retreat; for they have departed, they have gone to reside in our eternal home, the place with no outlets, with no openings; for already they have gone to rest near, next to our mother, our father, Mictlantecuhtli’ (ibid).

This would not, of course, apply to the gods themselves, who lived there and determined the destiny of humanity, as Sahagún’s informants declared in the various huehuetlahtolli, ‘words of the sages’ – speeches of advice and moral teachings frequently delivered by the Nahuas to people at different stages in life, such as becoming an adult, a wedding, choosing a ruler, seeking a favourable journey for a merchant, essentially at any time. The doings and transgressions of people would be known by the gods ‘above us, in the land of the dead, the heavens’ (Sahagún Bk 6, chapter 1).
Nevertheless, sages and nahuales (shape shifters) had knowledge of Mictlan: cemanaoac tlauia tepan mictlan onmati: ‘He illuminates the world [of the dead] for people: he knows Mictlan’ (Sahagún, 1571: 54). In fact such individuals had ways to visit these abodes, as affirmed by the Quichés in connection with their governor Q’ukumatz, who was said to have visited Xibalbá, a destination similar to Mictlan in the eyes of the ancient Quiché Maya:-
’In truth Lord Q’ukumatz would become wondrous:
For seven days he journeyed to the heavens
And for a further seven days he stayed in Xibalbá (Colop, 2008: 198).

Most probably these visits to and knowledge of Mictlan would have come about through practices such as nahualismo (shape shifting) or through dreams. In recent times the anthropologist Timothy Knab documented the practices of Nahua healers from San Miguel Tzinacapan, in Mexico’s Sierra de Puebla, who via dreams had travelled to the underworld, training themselves to operate in such a space and to recall their experiences (see Knab, 1991).
Mictlan must have been created by the gods when the world was created, alongside earth, water, time, space, sun, fire and the first humans. In the Historia de los mexicanos por sus pinturas it says ‘They made Mictlantecutli and Mictecacihuatl, husband and wife, and these were the gods of hell, and they placed them there’ (Garibay, 2005: 25). Everything that was created in that primogenital moment was formed at the same time: as the same text reads ‘All these aforementioned things were made and created together without differences in time’ (Garibay, 2005: 27). This is an important detail, given that death is related intimately to all these elements of creation. As a result, in representations of the earth we frequently see a reference to death – without which, in the conception of the ancient Nahuas, neither life, nor earth, nor time nor humanity could exist. Testimony to this worldview are such wonderful pieces as the Coatlicue monument in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City.

In mythology, the earth is often portrayed as a reptile, with mouth, claws and multiple eyes, just as in the Coatlicue sculpture (pic 8). The central skull represents death and by extension Mictlan, in the interior of the earth. This association between Mictlan and the earth is important: even today there is a common saying ‘We eat from the earth, then the earth eats [from] us (Good, 1996: 284). Furthermore, through caves, springs and other cavities in the earth, the path is opened to the regions of the deceased (pic 8). Thus for example at Chapultepec there has always been the belief that a cave existed there that communicated with Cincalco and other sites. The entrance could be found ‘in a place they call Atlixucan, where according to old people every night a ghost would emerge and carry off a man, the first it came across, never to return’ (Durán, 2002: I, 564). Via this same cave Moctezuma’s messengers could reach Cincalco. These emissaries ‘departed and entered a cave at Cincalco where they found four paths [pic 9]. They all agreed by which path to descend’ (Tezozomoc, 2018: 505). In the Popol Vuh of the Quiché Maya the same belief in paths to reach the underworld of Xibalbá can be found:-

‘Straightaway they arrived at the place of the four pathways
And they were overcome there, where the four paths cross:
One path was red,
The others were black, white and yellow.
There were four paths.
Then the black path spoke –
“You must follow me,
I am the path to the Lords”.
It was there that their defeat began
On taking the path to Xibalbá.’ (Colop, 2008: 68)

The image we have of Mictlan is of a place to be reached via a series of tests, thanks in the main to a folio in the Codex Vaticanus Ríos, showing the different ‘levels’ involved (pic 10).

Tlalticpac, “on the earth”
Apano huaya [Apanohuayan], “where the water crosses”
Tepetl monamicyan [Tepetl monamiquian], “where the mountains meet”
Yztepetl [Iztepetl], “Obsidian Hill”
Yee hecaya [Itzehecayan] “Place of the obsidian wind”
Pacuecue Tlacayá [Pancuecue tlacayan], “where people flutter like banners”
Temimina loya [Temiminaloyan], “where arrows shoot at people”
Teocoylqualoya [Teyolocualoyan], “where hearts are eaten”
Yzmictlan Apochcaloca [Itzmictlan apochcalocan], “place of people killed by obsidian, where resides the house that steams”.

For their part, Sahagún’s informants mentioned a series of ‘steps’ (not tests) that a dead person would have to pass through. These were explained to the deceased when their corpse was being prepared:-

‘They said to him:
‘”Here is wherewith thou wilt pass where the mountains come together.
‘”And here is wherewith thou wilt pass by the road which the serpent watcheth.
‘”And here is wherewith thou wilt pass by the blue lizard, the xochitonal.
‘”And here is wherewith thou wilt travel the eight deserts.
‘”And here is wherewith thou wilt cross the eight hills.
‘”Here is wherewith thou wilt pass the place of the obsidian-bladed winds.”
‘And in this place, the place of the obsidian-bladed winds, it was said that there was much suffering. By winds were all the obsidian blades and the stones swept along.’ (Sahagún Bk 3, Appendix Chapter 1).

Rather than trials, these places were part of the unique geography of Mictlan. The pre-Hispanic images that we assume show us this region appear not so much to be steps as places spread around the land of the dead, IF they’re mentioned at all by Sahagún’s informants. In turn, these images show similarities with earthly images, in which we can see flints/teeth, claws, skulls, creatures and land bugs, as well as representations of skulls, or hands, feet and hearts.
In the Sierra Norte de Puebla mountains, thanks to information obtained by healers travelling to Talocan (a place similar to Mictlan) via dreams they’ve trained themselves to remember and extreme self-control, elements tend to group themselves together. Just as in Mictlan we find eight hills, eight freezing deserts, nine rivers and so on, so in Talocan we find corresponding groups of 14, spread throughout the whole region with no fixed position. They function more as reference points in a changing world (Knab, 1991). Mictlan may have functioned in a similar way, a place of mystery and darkness, about which almost nothing can be said with certainty.

To the living, Mictlan feels hostile: ‘Obsidian knives fly in the wind’, like sand, trees and flint blades. There are plants, but they’re thorny cacti and bushes (Sahagún, 1997: 177-178).
Furthermore, everything that isn’t eaten on earth is devoured in Mictlan (pic 14):-
‘Everything that is not eaten here on earth is eaten there in Mictlan, and it is said that nothing else is eaten, that there is great want in Mictlan. In Mictlan, Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl eat feet, hands, and a feted beetle stew. Their gruel is pus, they drink it from skulls. The tamales are full of a foul smell of fetid beetles. He who on earth ate a stew of black beans eats hearts in Mictlan… everyone eats prickly poppies in Mictlan’ (ibid, 177).

This doesn’t mean Mictlan would be a place of terror, at least not for the dead. Rather it was a place of inversion. Wild animals become pets, skulls are used as cups, bad odours and tastes appreciated (Rafot, 104-106). All that was left to rot on earth would instead be consumed. In all likelihood the mictecah (inhabitants of Mictlan) would have regarded the hot, cooked foods in the land of the living as unpalatable. Moreover, if we accept the impression of Xibalbá in the Popol Vuh, the inhabitants could enjoy spectacles and amusements (as when the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué descend to the underworld to entertain the Lords).

The mictecah (people of the land of the dead) were conceived as being deformed and fleshless beings, but also earthbound creatures such as owls, or a bird known as oactli. These beings, whilst labouring in their (other)world, would also communicate with the world of the living, carrying messages of death, illness or impending fates. Still today in Mexico people say ‘When the owl sings, the Indian dies’.
There were other beings with strong connections with Mictlan, able to co-habit there and on earth: dogs. These creatures would accompany the deceased on the long journey to meet Mictlantecuhtli. According to mythology, the nahual of Quetzalcoatl, Xolotl, had accompanied the god on his journey through Mictlan to recover the bones that would be used to create a new humanity. After failing in their attempt to carry off the bones forever, the gods had to agree to return them after using them. Xolotl, the dog, would be in charge of fulfilling this part of the agreement.

However, not just any dog would do or be willing to serve: dogs that had been mistreated by their master would refuse to help. What’s more, the deceased had to swim across a river, aided by the dog. If the dog was white or black it would refuse the task, the former saying ‘I’ve just washed myself’, and the second ‘I’ve just stained myself [black] so I can’t help you across’ (Sahagún, 2006: 207-208). So only a bright red (some sources say yellow) dog would do…
Beyond its duties in the underworld, dogs had the ability to see those who had already died. According to several oral traditions in Mexico, if someone smears their eyes with the ‘sleep’ (discharge) from a dog’s eyes, they can see the dead; it’s worth pointing out that in many cases, it’s said, those that succeed die of fright, their soul or spirits having been terrified into leaving the body.

According to Sahagún’s informants, once an individual, accompanied by the dog, reached the realm of Mictlantecuhtli and the place known as Chiconauhmictlan (‘9-Mictlan’), they perished and vanished (Sahagún, Bk 3 Appendix Chapter 1). In all likelihood the individuality of the deceased person finally came to an end, though they would continue in another existence and in a different form, de-fleshed, perhaps as a bird, insect, an animal linked to the earth, even as a plant – and thus would continue labouring in the world…
Nevertheless, through memories, songs, festivals/days of the dead the name and achievements of the person would be evoked, somehow these would live on. Not for nothing it used to be said that Mictlan was the place ‘where somehow one will always be present…’

References:-
• Codex Borgia (online) FAMSI - Akademische Druck - u. Verlagsanstalt - Graz - Codex Borgia
• Codex Laud (online). FAMSI - Akademische Druck - u. Verlagsanstalt - Graz - Codex Laud
• Codex Vaticanus A 3738 (Codex Ríos) (online) FAMSI: www.famsi.org/spanish/research/graz/vaticanus3738/index.html
• Colop, Sam (Ed). Popol Wuj. Guatemala: Cholsamaj, 2008
• De la Garza Gálvez, Ignacio. “Los muertos de la tierra: los difuntos destinados al Mictlán y al Tlalocan” en Vita Brevis. Revista electrónica de estudios de la muerte. Año 6, Núm. 11, julio-diciembre 2017, pp. 174-192
• mediateca.inah.gob.mx/repositorio/islandora/object/issue:1240
• Durán, Diego. Historia de las indias de Nueva España e Islas de Tierra Firme. México: CONACULTA, 2002, 2 vols.
• Garibay, Ángel María. Teogonía e historia de los mexicanos: tres opúsculos del siglo XVI. México: Porrúa, 2005
• Good Eshelman, Catherine. 1996. “El Trabajo De Los Muertos En La Sierra De Guerrero”. Estudios De Cultura Náhuatl 26 (diciembre):275-87. nahuatl.historicas.unam.mx/index.php/ecn/article/view/77981
• Graulich, Michel. Mitos y rituales del México antiguo. Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 1990
• Knab, Tim J. “Geografía del inframundo” in Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1991, núm. 21, pp. 31-57
• López Austin, Alfredo. Tamoanchan y Tlalocan. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1994
• Ragot, Nathalie. Les au-delás aztéques. Paris: Monographs in American Archaeology 7, 2000
• Sahagún, fray Bernardino de. Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España: México: Porrúa, 2006
----- Primeros memoriales. Paleography and Translation by Thelma D. Sullivan. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997
----- Florentine Codex (1959-61) Books 3 and 6, translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, School of American Research and University of Utah
----- Historia General de las cosas de la Nueva España. 1577 (online). Downloaded from: Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España por el fray Bernardino de Sahagún: el Códice Florentino - Biblioteca Digital Mundial (wdl.org)
• Tezozomoc, Alvarado. Crónica Mexicana. Alicante : Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2018. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/cronica-mexicana-escrita-hacia-el-ano-de-1598-929707/.

Picture sources:-
• Pix 1, 7 & 17: photos by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pix 2, 3, 14 & 15: images scanned from our own copy of the Codex Laud, ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1966
• Pix 4 & 10: images scanned from our own copy of the Codex Vaticanus A/Ríos, ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1979
• Pix 5 & 8: images from 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
• Pix 6, 11 & 12: images from the Codex Borgia scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1976
• Pic 9: image scanned from Popol Vuh - A Sacred Book of the Maya retold by Victor Montejo, illustrated by Luis Garay, Groundwood Books, Toronto, 2009)
• Pix 13: photo supplied by the author, downloaded from https://www.inah.gob.mx/boletines/5623-se-cumplen-10-anos-del-descubrimiento-del-monolito-de-la-diosa-tlaltecuhtli
• Pic 16: photo by Ana Laura Landa/Mexicolore.