Blood and bones
“Tomas?”
Juanita poked her nose into her big brother’s room. “Tomas,” she asked,
“is it true that no one but Indians used to live here in Mexico City?”
Her brother was studying the history of Mexico in college. She knew he
would be able to tell her.
Tomas grinned. “That’s right. Mexico City was once the capital of the
Aztec Empire.”
“What were the Aztecs like?” asked Juanita.
“Very different from us,” Tombs told her. “For one thing, they used to
kill people on special days.”
“Why did they do that?” Juanita gasped.
“Well, to understand why, you have to know the Aztec story of how the
world began,” said Tomas.
“The Aztecs believed that long, long ago, when there was nothing but
darkness, there was one great god named Ometeotl, who was all alone. But
then Ometeotl gave birth to foui’ other gods, and they made the world.”
“Did they make people?” Juanita asked.
“Not right away,” answered Tomas. “First they got into a fight that
lasted a long time. The god named Tezcatlipoca had made himself into the
sun. He was ruling the world, which was filled with giants that the gods
had made. But the god Quetzalcoatl hit Tezcatlipoca with a club and
knocked him into the ocean! In anger, Tezcatlipoca turned himself into a
jaguar and ate all the giants!
“Then Quetzalcoatl turned himself into the sun, made people, and began
to rule the world. But
Tezcatlipoca, the jaguar, struck Quetzalcoatl with his paw and knocked
him out of the sky. Then a great wind blew across the world. It tore up
all the trees and killed most of the people, except for a few who were
turned into monkeys. That’s how monkeys came to be.
“Next, the god Tlaloc became the sun. But Quetzalcoatl sent a rain of
fire down upon the earth. All the people that Tlaloc had made were
killed or turned into birds. That’s how birds came to be.
“Then the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue became the sun. But Tezcatlipoca made
it rain so hard that the sky, which was made of water, fell down and
covered the earth. All the people either drowned or became fish. That’s
how fish came to be.
“Now there was no land. There were no people. The sky covered
everything. So Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl stopped their quarrel and
lifted the sky back into place.
“Then Quetzalcoatl went to the land of the dead, where the bones of many
people lay. He tricked Mictlantecuhtli, the god of the dead, into
letting him take some of the bones back into the world. He took blood
from his own body and let it drip onto the bones. The bones became live
people, the Aztecs.
“Quetzalcoatl taught the Aztecs how to grow corn and how to weave
cotton. He taught them about the stars and how to tell time. He was
their favorite god. And because he had shed his blood to give them life,
the Aztecs believed in giving blood back to him to show their gratitude.
That’s why they killed people on those special days.”
Juanita nodded. “I Understand,” she said. “But I don’t think it was very
nice of them!”
