Finally, a myth that every red-blooded sports fan can love! It involves a ball game. Today, people often speak of the mythic accomplishments of certain athletes-like Babe Ruth's prodigious home runs promised to a sick boy. But great athletes were actually a part of the Mayan mythology. Along with other Mesoamericans, the Mayas passionately played a sport that takes center court-literally-in the Popol Vuh.

The Mayan sport, simply called "the ball game," was more than just a game. Combining ritual elements with Super Bowllevel excitement, the sport was played on a ball court with two walls. The largest such court found in the ancient Mayan world is at Chichen Itza and measures 140 by 35 meters (approximately 153 by 38 yards, or longer and narrower than a typical international soccer field or American football field). The courts featured two steeply sloping parallel stone walls inset with round disks or rings set high on the walls at right angles. Two teams competed in a contest to pass a rubber ball through such a ring. Other versions of the game included markers that could also be hit to score points. The game was probably invented by the Olmecs, who were the first to cultivate the rubber tree and whose name came from Aztec and meant "the people who use rubber."

Sounds easy-like basketball. But the tricky part was that the ball couldn't touch the ground, and had to be hit off the walls, using only the elbows, knees, or hips. A single score-or the ball touching the ground-usually ended the match. So, winning must have been difficult-but losing was even harder. "Sudden death" in this ball game could be literal, since the leader of the losing team sometimes became a sacrificial victim. It didn't happen at every ball game but often enough, as human sacrifice was essential in the Mesoamerican religions. And modern professional coaches think they are under a lot of pressure!

The central importance of the ball game is underscored in a story in part 3 of the Popol Vuh, in which two different sets of heroes are very good "ball players," who play an "under-World Series" with the gods of death.

The first set of twins, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu (their names are actually dates from the elaborate Mayan calendar), are playing ball one day, but the noise of their game annoys the lords of Xibalba (hell), One Death and Seven Death, who invite the brothers to the underworld for a game. Among the other lords of the Mayan underworld are the charmingly named Scab Stripper, Blood Gatherer, Demon of Pus, and Demon of Jaundice. When the twins arrive and play the game, the lords of hell flat out cheat, kill the brothers, and decapitate them-losing heads is a recurring theme in the Popol Vuh.

One twin's head is placed in a tree as a warning not to mess around with the lords of hell. But Blood Moon, the daughter of Blood Gatherer, is fascinated by the head and is even more surprised when it speaks to her. The head tells the girl to put out her hand, and then spits on it. This makes Blood Moon pregnant. Her father is so angry that he calls for her sacrifice. But she conspires with the messengers sent to sacrifice her to use a false heart, just as in the story of Sleeping Beauty, when the hunter who is supposed to kill her offers an animal heart as proof instead. Blood Moon seeks out her mother-in-law on earth, where she gives birth to the hero twins, Hunahpu and Ixbalanque.

It is clear from the start that these twins are magical, because they grow up fast, are unusually expert hunters, and can perform all sorts of miracles, like killing monsters. One day they discover their father's ball-playing equipment and decide to play. Like their father and uncle before them, they disturb the gods of Xibalba and are summoned to the under-world and given a series of challenges by the lords of hell. Unlike their ancestors, however, these twins are able to outwit the lords of hell. Supreme tricksters, they meet every challenge put to them. At last, they are placed in a Bat House. A bat swoops down and beheads Hunahpu, and his head is used as the ball in the next ball game. But Ixbalanque switches his brother's head with a squash, and Hunahpu is restored to life. When the lords of death realize they have been tricked yet again, they decide to burn the twins.

With the help of a magician, the twins willingly jump into a pit of fire and are resurrected five days later. They then begin to travel the land as magicians. Hearing of their wonderful magical skills, the lords of hell order a command performance, and the twins amaze them with a series of dismemberments and decapitations of animals and themselves-from which they are able to recover! Seeing this miracle, the lords of hell want to become part of the act and ask the twins to kill and then restore them. The heroes readily agree, but then don't bring the lords of hell back to life. In this way, death is defeated, giving hope to mankind. For this great service, the twins are rewarded by being made the sun and the moon.

As the Popol Vuh, with its streams of blood and frequent decapitations, proves, Mayan myth wasn't all games. Obsessed with images of death, Mayan religion included sacrifice. In their cities, built essentially for ceremonial purposes, the Mayas constructed limestone pyramids topped with small temples where priests performed the gory rituals. The gods, whose help was required to continue the cycles of nature and to ensure fertility, demanded nourishment. To obtain the help of the gods, the Mayas fasted, prayed, and offered sacrifical deer, dogs, and turkeys.

The Mayas frequently offered their own blood as well, and sometimes their blood sacrifice involved a priest or noble person piercing the tongue, penis, ears, lips, or other body parts, which they spattered on pieces of bark paper or collected in bowls. Some occasions called for the living heart of a victim to be cut out in sacrifices performed at the top of the pyramid. In a culture that believed the world had been created five times and destroyed four, and would be destroyed again, this was part of the balance. For most people, death meant Xibalba, or hell. Heaven was reserved for those who had died in childbirth or battle, or those who were hanged or were offered as sacrifice. The ideas of penitence, fasting, abstinence, a world-ending flood, and a tortured, dying god were all part of the Mayan traditions-which made them fertile ground for the Catholic religion.

WHO'S WHO OF MAYAN GODS The Mayan pantheon was quite vast. These are among its most significant gods.

Ah Puch Depicted with a skeleton's exposed ribs and the face of death-or as a bloated corpse-Ah Puch is unmistakable. He is the "lord of death," who visits the homes of the sick and dying to snatch them away to the kingdom of the dead. A later name for him is Cizin, "the flatulent one." Ah Puch is apparently still feared today by modern descendants of the Mayas in Guatemala, who call him Yum Cimil.

Chac Portrayed as a warrior whose tears brought rainwater to earth, Chac is a rain god, an agricultural and fertility deity, and one of the longest continuously worshipped gods of Mesoamerica. Responsible for bringing maize (corn) to the people by opening a stone in which the first maize plant was hidden, Chac is often worshipped as four separate but beneficial gods, one for each point of the compass. In the ritual that required the sacrifice of a human victim and the removal of his still-beating heart, the four men who assisted the priest were called chacs.

Hunab The remote Creator deity, Hunab renews the earth three times after flooding it. Once he repopulates earth with dwarfs, the second time with an obscure race, and finally with the Mayas, who are destined to be overcome by a fourth flood. Hunab may also have been the father of the chief god Itzamna.

Itzamna The greatest deity of the ancient Maya, Itzamna is lord of the heavens-the god of day, night, and moon, who brings writing, religious rituals, and civilization to the Mayas. Far from an awesome Zeus-like figure of power and glory, Itzamna is portrayed as a wizened, toothless old man. But don't be misled. Itzamna is also lord of medicine, with healing powers that allow him to banish fatal illness and raise the dead.

According to some scholars, Itzamna is never responsible for anything bad-unlike his wife, Ixchel or Lady Rainbow, who is loathsome and frightening. Depicted as an angry old woman with great power, Ixchel is the goddess of pregnancy, midwifery, and childbirth, and can tell the future. But she is also the storm goddess, who creates disastrous rains and floods-presumably the connection to her Rainbow epithet. She is often depicted wearing a skirt decorated with crossed bones, and a snake on her head. This snake is the Sky Serpent, which contains all the waters of heaven in its belly. In most artistic renderings, Ixchel holds a water jug, the vessel of doom, from which she can pour a destructive torrent at any time.

Ixtab An unusual goddess, Ixtab is often depicted hanging from a tree, partially decomposed, and is said to be the goddess of suicide, who takes the souls of those that die by hanging to eternal rest. The Mayas were preoccupied with death, especially violent death, and may have believed that suicide was an honorable way to enter the afterworld. Ixtab takes the souls of suicides, fallen warriors, sacrificial victims, and women who die in childbirth, to eternal rest.

Kinich-Ahau The ancient Mayan sun god Kinich-Ahau takes different forms in much the way Egypt's Re does. As Kinich-Ahau travels across the sky during the daytime, he appears old and young. During the nighttime, he is transformed into the jaguar god. The largest and most powerful Central American cat, the jaguar was feared and admired by the earliest people of Mexico and is one of the region's oldest gods. Jaguar also rules the underworld and is a symbol of power, fertility, and kingship. In order to show that they possessed these qualities, Mayan priests typically wore jaguar skins.

Pauahtun A god with four incarnations, Pauahtun stands at the four corners of the world holding up the sky. In spite of this very important job, he is thought of as a drunkard and the unpredictable god of thunder and wind.

THE MYTHS OF THE AZTECS.

The name "Aztec" is widely but somewhat inaccurately applied to the people who settled in the Valley of Mexico sometime in the 1200s and founded the city of Tenochtitlan, on the site of present-day Mexico City, in 1325, according to Aztec traditions. A huge, oval basin about 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) above sea level, the valley is in the tropics but has a mild climate because of its altitude. Technically, all of the people speaking a language called "Nahuatl" in the Valley of Mexico are "Aztec," while the tribe that came to dominate the area was a group called the Tenochca, a division of the larger group called Mexica, a word the Spanish transformed into "Mexico." According to Aztec legend, the ancestors of the people who founded Tenochtitlan came to the Valley of Mexico from a place in the north called Aztlan, from which the name "Aztec" derives. By the early 1400s, they had come to dominate the region.

MYTHIC VOICES.

They have a most horrid and abominable custom which truly ought to be punished and which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols.... Certainly Our Lord God would be well pleased if by the hand of Your Royal Highnesses these people were initiated and instructed in our Holy Catholic Faith, and the devotion, trust, and hope which they have in these idols were transferred to the divine power of God.

-HERNANDO CORTeS*(1521) The Spaniards made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow; or they opened up his bowels. They tore the babies from their mother's breasts by their feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks.... They spitted the bodies of other babies, together with their mothers and all who were before them on their swords....[They hanged Indians] by thirteens, in honor and reverence for our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive.... I saw all the above things.... All these did my own eyes witness.

-FRAY BARTOLOMe DE LAS CASAS, History of the Indies, 1552 What sets Mesoamerican myth apart?

There is little question that what sets Mesoamerican myth apart from many others is its preoccupation with human sacrifice. Other civilizations throughout history clearly used human sacrifice, but nowhere else does it seem to occur quite on the scale it did in Mesoamerica. And nowhere in Mesoamerica was it more pronounced than among the Aztecs, a group originally known as the Tenochca.

In their foundation myth, the Tenochca were commanded by their god Huitzilopochtli to journey from their home base in the north to the Valley of Mexico. At first, they lived in the town of Culhuacan. But after they sacrificed a daughter of Culhuacan's king, the Tenochca were forced to move and start their own city, Tenochtitlan, on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Becoming more powerful and skilled as warriors, they often served as mercenaries in the ongoing conflicts among other people in the area. By the mid-1400s, the Tenochca built a causeway that linked their island city to the mainland, and began to conquer the Valley of Mexico, emerging as a powerful city-state that controlled the region. Under Moctezuma I (also known as Montezuma), who ruled from 1440 to 1469, the Tenochcas conquered large areas to the east and south, and the name Aztec now commonly refers to this larger group who made up this empire. Moctezuma's successors expanded the empire until it reached what is now Guatemala, to the south, and the state of San Luis Potosi, about 225 miles north of Mexico City.

As they did, the Aztecs assimilated many of the gods, beliefs, and practices of the surrounding area into their own religion and myths, including the ancient gods of the mysterious ancient city of Teotihuacan, which they named "the place where men became gods," and the remnants of Toltecs, another warrior tribe that had conquered much of the Mayan territory in Yucatan. When Moctezuma II became emperor in 1502, the Aztec empire was at the height of its power, and hundreds of nearby conquered towns paid heavy taxes to the empire. By the time the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, Tenochtitlan may have had a population of 200,000 to 300,000, larger than any Spanish city of that time. But the Aztec rulers also had made plenty of enemies among the people they taxed and fought with so relentlessly. The Spanish were able to use that local antagonism to make allies among some of the natives eager to see Moctezuma brought down.

A highly militarized society with the kind of sharp class distinctions found in European feudalism, the Aztecs were divided into nobles, commoners, serfs, and slaves. While an emperor presided over all, a council of nobles commanded military units stationed in key locations throughout the empire. The military class included a hierarchy of knights and other ranks, whose main objective was to fight in what were called the "flowery wars" (la guerra florida). Don't let the name deceive you. These wars had nothing to do with gardening. The "flowery wars" resulted from an agreement between the Aztecs and other tribes to essentially hold mock battles in order to secure live prisoners for the sacrifices. On these set dates, the young members of the warrior class fought in order to prove themselves, and prisoners for sacrifice could be taken.

To the Aztecs, warfare was a religious duty aimed at taking prisoners to offer to the gods, and providing blood for the gods was a sacred duty. As a result, Aztec methods of combat were designed to capture prisoners rather than kill them. The chief Aztec weapon, a wooden club edged with sharp pieces of obsidian, was effective for disabling an opponent without finishing him off. For protection, warriors carried wooden shields and wore padded cotton armor. Clearly, these weapons and armor did not serve them very well against the steel swords, metal armor, firearms, and cannons of the Spanish. The Aztec and other native warriors, accustomed to taking prisoners in battle, were also unprepared at first to fight battles in which killing was the point.

The fruit of the flowery wars-the blood flowing from a wound was described as the "flower of war"-was offered up at great ceremonies, during which human hearts were proffered to Huitzilopochtli and the other major divinities. Believing that the world had already been destroyed four times, the Aztecs thought that this feeding of the gods would forestall the end of the universe. The grim "open heart surgery" was performed by priests who slashed open the chest of a living victim and tore out the heart. Like the Mayas, the Aztecs believed that the gods needed human hearts and blood to remain strong. Before their deaths, sacrificial victims, who symbolically represented the gods, were dressed in rich clothing, given servants, and treated with honor. Once dead, their souls flew immediately to Tonatiuhichan-the House of the Sun. This was the highest paradise, where dead warriors spent their eternal lives-and lived forever in happiness. By some accounts-not universally accepted-priests or worshippers sometimes ate portions of a victim's body, believing that the dead person's strength and bravery passed to anyone who ate the flesh. While most victims were prisoners of war, the Aztecs also sacrificed children to the god Tlaloc.

Some modern critics and historians dismiss the accounts of Aztec sacrifice as propaganda written by the Spanish invaders to justify their own brutality. But the vast majority of scholarly research and recent archaeology supports the view that the Aztecs had elevated human sacrifice to a ghastly cultural rite.

Did the Aztecs really think the Spanish were gods?

Back in grade school, if they were still teaching anything about the arrival of the Spanish in what would become Mexico, you may have heard this version of events. When the Spaniards arrived, riding horses then unknown in the Americas and wearing metal armor that made great noise, the "primitive" Aztecs unwittingly welcomed them, believing that Cortes was the returning god Quetzalcoatl. With a relatively small band of men, Cortes entered Tenochtitlan, took Moctezuma captive, and, in short order, captured the city and the Aztec empire, eventually destroying it.

The real history, as usual, is a little more complex. First, we should begin with the source of this story-or legend, as it might be called. Most accounts of the arrival of Cortes and the Spaniards, and specifically his encounter with Moctezuma, come from Cortes and other conquistadors, and, later, priests. That's like reading Captain John Smith's history of colonial-era Virginia, or accepting Hitler's view of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It is hardly unbiased history.

In fact, Cortes landed on the east coast of Mexico in 1519, and marched inland to the Aztec capital. He and his men, who were not all trained soldiers, were joined by thousands of natives who had been conquered by the Aztecs and resented Aztec rule. Moctezuma II did not oppose the advancing Spaniards and did invite them in, but then they took him hostage. In 1520, the Aztecs rebelled and drove the Spaniards from the city. Moctezuma died that year, either executed or from wounds received early in the rebellion. Cortes reorganized his army and began a bloody attack on Tenochtitlan in May 1521. Moctezuma's successor, Cuauhtemoc, surrendered in August the same year. He was later hanged by the Spanish for "treason."

So, the question remains: did myth play any role in this fatal encounter? Most histories of the conquest state that Moctezuma believed Cortes represented the returning god Quetzalcoatl. But anthropologist and Latin studies expert Matthew Restall counts this as one of the Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, the title of his 2003 history. He is joined by other recent scholars who question this very old assumption. John H. Elliott, a British historian, suggests that this story of the role of Aztec myth in the conquest is layered with its own set of legends. First of all, Cortes himself never mentioned the Quetzalcoatl story in his own writings. Restall and Elliott believe that the stories of a returning god from the East only sprang up later-perhaps twenty years after the Spanish arrived. Elliott also dismisses Cortes's accounts of two speeches made by Moctezuma as the elaborate creation of the Spaniard, written for the consumption of the Spanish royal court. There are no contemporary records-in the writings of Cortes or later Aztec accounts-to confirm the idea that the Aztecs thought the Europeans were gods.

Whether or not the Aztecs actually believed that Cortes was the returning Quetzalcoatl remains an intriguing historical mystery. But it is certainly not what brought about the ultimate downfall of a mighty empire. In his landmark book about the role of disease in history, Plagues and Peoples, William H. McNeill writes: "Four months after the Aztecs had driven Cortes and his men from their city, an epidemic of small pox broke out among them, and the man who had organized the attack on Cortes was among those who died.... Such partiality could only be explained supernaturally, and there could be no doubt about which side of the struggle enjoyed divine favor. The religions, priest-hoods, and way of life built around the old Indian gods could not survive such a demonstration of the superior power of the God the Spaniards worshipped."

What is the "Day of the Dead"?

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico and the rest of Mesoamerica around 1500, one of the native traditions they encountered was a month-long ritual that seemed to mock death. Though the tradition had roots stretching back thousands of years, the Catholic priests saw it as "pagan" and did their best to eradicate it.

During this celebration, the Aztecs and other Mesoamericans displayed skulls, which symbolized the twin ideas of death and rebirth. The skulls were used to honor the dead, who were thought to come back and visit during the month long celebration, which was presided over by Mictecacihuatli, the goddess of the underworld known as "lady of the dead."

The Spanish considered the ritual barbarous and sacrilegious, an extension of the human sacrifices that they had eliminated. "Good Christians" simply didn't go around worshipping skulls or other body parts (unless, of course, they should happen to be the remains or "relics" of a dead saint!). In their attempts to convert the natives to Catholicism, the Spanish tried to stamp out this celebration, which fell in the Aztec solar calendar's ninth month-around August. When they could not eliminate it, the priests simply moved the celebration to coincide with the Catholic feast days, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (November 1 and 2).

It is another classic example of how myths are transformed from one culture to another. Just as the Church had succeeded in converting the Celtic Samhain-also a time when the dead walked the earth-into All Souls' Day (see chapter 5), the Aztec celebration of the dead was merged with Catholic tradition. But the ancient native roots of what is now known as Dia de los Muertos ("day of the dead") didn't go away. Although increasingly commercialized into a "Hispanic Halloween" festival that extends well beyond October 31, the ancient traditions of this celebration of the dead are very much alive. Today, people in Mexico and Latin America, as well as many Hispanic Americans, don wooden skull masks and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. Wooden skulls are also placed on altars dedicated to the dead. Candy "skulls" of sugar and "Day of the Dead" cookies are widely sold. In many places, it is customary to make a trip to the cemetery for a graveside picnic comprising the deceased person's favorite foods. Gifts for the dead are also placed on graves.

WHO'S WHO OF AZTEC GODS The Aztecs worshipped hundreds of divinities who were believed to rule all human activities and aspects of nature. This list includes some of the Aztecs' central deities.

Centeotl (Cinteotl) God of the all-important maize, Centeotl is a key fertility figure. Every April, people offer him their blood, which is dropped on reeds and displayed on front doors. Centeotl also performs penitence that ensures abundant crops for mankind. All the attributes connected to Centeotl-blood sacrifice, penitence, and an April festival-were connected by Catholic priests to Jesus and his springtime crucifixion and resurrection.

Coatlicue Known as the Lady of the Serpent Skirt, Coatlicue is the mother of the central god Huitzilopochtli as well as an earth serpent goddess. She wears a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace of human hearts, and carries a skull pendant. Endowed with flabby breasts and clawed hands and feet, Coatlicue feeds on human corpses. But she is not totally without redeeming qualities. Since she is goddess of the fertility of the earth, she freely gives life-sustaining crops to humanity.

In a key Aztec myth, Coatlicue is magically impregnated in an "immaculate conception" when a ball or clump of feathers falls from the sky and lands on her breast. Thinking that their mother has disgraced herself by becoming pregnant, Coatlicue's 400 children plan to kill her to uphold the family honor. In some accounts, Coatlicue is killed; in others, she lives. Either way, she gives birth to Huitzilopochtli, who springs from her body fully formed and kills many of his half-siblings. The idea of the virgin birth of Jesus would have been completely acceptable to the people who embraced this myth of a god born from a pregnancy that came from a clump of heavenly feathers.

Huitzilopochtli While many Aztec deities were borrowed or transformed from other myths of Mesoamerica, Huitzilopochtli is "All-Aztec." Chief deity of the Aztecs, the god of war and the sun, Huitzilopochtli commands the Aztec warriors to create an empire, fight without mercy, and gather the captives necessary for sacrifice to the gods. Each night he undergoes a transformation, much like the Egyptian Re, becoming bones and returning to the world the next morning. His name means "blue hummingbird of the left," because dead warriors become hummingbirds and fly to the underworld. Appropriately, Huitzilopochtli is depicted as a blue man fully armed and decorated with hummingbird feathers.

Huitzilopochtli's birth is exceptional because he springs fully formed from his mother Coatlicue's body just as she is about to be killed by her 400 children. Huitzilopochtli kills his half-sister Coyolxauhqui, or Golden Bells, and tosses her head into the heavens, where it becomes the moon. With his mother the earth, his sister the moon, and his 400 brothers who comprise the stars of the Milky Way, Huitzilopochtli and his family make up the entire cosmos.

Mictlantecuhtli God of death, Mictlantecuhtli rules the silent kingdom of the dead known as Mictlan. Depicted as a skeleton wearing a pleated conical cap, Mictlantecuhtli figures in the Aztec story of the origin of people. Once the gods decide to repopulate the earth-after a flood!-they send the god Quetzalcoatl to the underworld to gather the bones of the dead who will be brought back to life. While Quetzalcoatl is carrying these bones, Mictlantecuhtli tries to trick him. Quetzalcoatl drops some of the bones and breaks them. When he gathers them up and returns to earth, the bones are sprinkled with the blood of the gods and are changed into men. Because some of the bones are broken, men come in different sizes.

Ometecuhtli (Ometeotl) The supreme creator god of the Aztecs, Ometecuhtli lives in the highest part of heaven and is known as the "dual lord" or "two-god." His name is fitting, since the "dual lord" takes a variety of forms, including a dual incarnation as a divine couple who are the parents of the four great Aztec gods: Huitzilopochtli, Xipe Totec ("the flayed lord"), Tezcatlipoca, and Quetzalcoatl.

Quetzalcoatl The dying and rising god, Quetzalcoatl is the great king and bringer of civilization. Known as the "plumed serpent," Quetzalcoatl is depicted as a combination of a snake with the feathers of the quetzal, a brilliantly colored bird whose feathers signal authority among the Maya (it is still the national bird of Guatemala). A semilegendary ruler with roots in the older Toltec and Mayan myths, he may have been based on a Toltec priest-king, although one of the Mayan Creation gods, Gucumatz (or Kukulkan), is also called "plumed serpent" in the Popol Vuh.

His wife or sister, Chalchiuhtlicue, is goddess of running water. She protects newborn children, marriage, and innocent love.

In the complex Aztec-calendar religion, which includes four eras of varying length from hundreds to thousands of years called "suns," Quetzalcoatl rules the second sun, which ends with hurricanes, and men being transformed into monkeys-a vestige of Mayan myth. The first sun is ruled by Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl's brother, and comes to an end when beasts consume the world. The third sun is ruled by Tlaloc, god of rain and fertility, and ends in fire. The fourth sun is ruled by Tlaloc's wife, Chalchiuhtlicue, and ends in the flood in which men are changed to fish. After the fourth sun, Quetzalcoatl makes his trip to the underworld to repopulate the earth. Humanity at present is in the fifth sun, ruled by the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli, which will end with earthquakes. This highly apocalyptic view of the world squared neatly with Catholic teachings.

Quetzalcoatl figures in an important myth, in which he argues with his brother Tezcatlipoca. There are two accounts of what happens next. Quetzalcoatl either sails away in a raft or immolates himself, in either case promising to return someday. This is the myth Cortes supposedly exploited in his conquest of the Aztecs, although the jury is now out on that one.

Tezcatlipoca The brother and sometimes adversary of Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca ("lord of the smoking mirror") is god of the summer sun and the harvest as well as drought, darkness, war, and death. His name derives from the mirrors made from obsidian, which sorcerers used to predict the future. A black stone, obsidian was also employed to make spear points, war axes, and, most important, sacrificial knives.

Tezcatlipoca is a fickle deity with a split personality, who can be cruel or kind. Taking pleasure in battle, he is thought to die each night and return to the world in the morning.

In Tenochtitlan, custom held that handsome young men were sometimes selected to impersonate Tezcatlipoca for a year, after which they were killed with an obsidian knife, their hearts removed and offered as sacrifices.

Tlaloc An ancient rain-and-fertility god adapted from the earlier Toltec people, Tlaloc is portrayed as a black man with tusklike jaguar's teeth, rings around his eyes, and a scroll emerging from his mouth. He controls rain, lightning, and wind, as well as afflictions such as leprosy. According to the grim accounts of Tlaloc, his ritual sacrifices in Tenochtitlan required infant subjects. If the mothers of the sacrificial infants wept, the worshippers believed rain for the crops was assured. The flesh of these sacrificial victims was then eaten by the priests and nobility. (Tlaloc corresponds to the Mayan Chac, who also demanded sacrifice.)

Tlaloc's consort is She of the Jade Skirt (Chalchiuhtlicue), the goddess of rivers and standing waters. She of the Jade Skirt also protects children. Perhaps she is associated with them because of the water that breaks before a woman gives birth.

Tlazolteotl Certainly one of the least appealing deities in any pantheon, Tlazolteotl is called "eater of the excrement" and is aptly know as the filth goddess. Associated with the consequences of lust and licentiousness, she is depicted squatting in a traditional birthing position. She is also linked with confession, purification, and penitence.

Xipe Totec The god of agriculture and penitential torture, Xipe Totec is "the flayed lord." According to myth, the flayed lord undergoes self-torture, which the Aztecs imitate by lacerating their bodies with cactus thorns and sharp-edged reeds. There may have been a connection between this ritual and corn, which loses its skin when the shoots begin to burst through. Or the link between new skin and spring growth. Xipe Totec also may have been sacrificing himself to placate the Lady of the Serpent Skirt goddess, Coatlicue, because the world and the soil need to be replenished with regular sacrifice.

One Aztec form of sacrifice involved flaying. Priests sometimes donned the skins that had been stripped from their victims, perhaps in homage to the "flayed lord."

And you thought The Silence of the Lambs was creepy.