"man is alone everywhere. but the solitude of the mexican, under the great stone night of the...

"Man is alone everywhere. But the solitude of the Mexican, under the great stone night of the high plateau that is still inhabited by insatiable gods, is very different from that of the North American, who wanders in an abstract world of machines, fellow citizens and moral precepts. In the Valley of Mexico man feels himself suspended between heaven and earth, and he oscillates between contrary powers and forces, and petrified eyes and devouring mouths. Reality -- that is, the world that surrounds us -- exists by itself here, has a life of its own, and was not invented by man as it was in the United States."

Octavio Paz, joven

Octavio Paz, viejo

The Return of Quetzalcoátl and the Fall of Man

Click on icon for the Myth of Quetzalcoátl

Click on icon for text of lecture

Bandera de Mexico con águila y serpiente

Detalle de águila y serpiente

Templo Mayor

El Museo Nacional de Antropología cuenta con esta reconstrucción del Templo Mayor,

el recinto sagrado de la capital mexica, donde se puede apreciar la magnitud

del conjunto ceremonial.

                                                                Back to previous page

Serpientes: Templo Mayor, México, D.F.

Templo Mayor: Tenochtitlán (Mexico City)

Click on head for Aztec Cosmogony

Click on Aztec Sunstone for Aztec Links

Coatlicue: The Lady of the Skirt of Snakes

The Náhuatl Language of the AztecsThe Aztecs spoke a language called Náhuatl (pronounced NAH waht l). It belongs to a large group of Indian languages which also include the languages spoken by the Comanche, Pima, Shoshone and other tribes of western North America. The Aztec used pictographs to communicate through writing. Some of the pictures symbolized ideas and other represented the sounds of the syllables.

HacedClick en laimagen

Historia de

La Conquista

J.C. Orozco,

Hospicio

Cabañas

El Hombre de Hierro;

J.C. Orozco,

Hospicio Cabañas

Cortés y

La Malinche

J.C. Orozco,

Hospicio Cabañas

Xochicalco, Centro Ceremonial, Morelos, México

Cancha de Pelota, Xochicalco

Xochicalco, Centro Ceremonial, Morelos, México

Tepozlán (Morelos, México)

Teotihuacán: Avenue of the Dead and Pyramid of the Moon

Teotihuacán: Pyramid of the Moon

Teotihuacán: Pyramid of the Sun

Teotihuacán: Temple of Quetzalcoátl

Cabeza de Quetzalcoátl, Templo Teotihuacán

Quetzal = Green Parrot (The Good in Man)

Coátl = Serpent (The Evil in Man)

Quetzalcoátl = Feathered Serpent

Quetzalcoátl

José Clemente Orozco: The ProphecyBaker Library, Dartmouth College

José Clemente Orozco: The Departure of QuetzalcoátlBaker Library, Dartmouth College

José Clemente Orozco: Aztec WarriorsBaker Library, Dartmouth College

Aztec Human Sacrifice

Skull rack altar (tzompantli) of Templo Mayor, Mexico City

Since the Toltecs' era, the chac-mool served as a vessel from man to the gods. It was believed to deliver the sacrificial heart to the gods in the heavens. While the Aztecs used such large bowls like the aforementioned eagle and jaguar bowls, they also employed the more traditional chac-mool for the same purpose. One of the oldest constructions of the Great Temple shows a very early chac-mool in the Aztec empire.

José Clemente Orozco: Ancient Human SacrificeBaker Library, Dartmouth College

José Clemente Orozco: Modern Human SacrificeBaker Library, Dartmouth College

José ClementeOrozco

Hombre en Llamas (Man Aflame) Hospicio Cabañas

José Guadalupe Posada

"History has the cruel reality of a nightmare, and the grandeur of man consists in his making beautiful and lasting works out of the real substance of that nightmare. Or, to put it another way,it consists in transforming the nightmare into vision; in freeing ourselves from the shapeless horror of reality--if only for a moment -- by means of creation."

Octavio Paz

Epitafio para un poeta

Quiso cantar, cantar para olvidar su vida verdadera de mentiras y recordar su mentirosa vida de verdades.

Bajo tu clara sombra …

Donde vibra el instante,

La frenética música;

La cima de los besos

La plenitud del mundo y de sus formas.