Vida Newsletter, Volume 4 - February 16, 1989

MAR 1989 VIDA Uolume # iv Date : February 16, 1989 A step K7& ourp^st... LIFE AS AN AZTEC Today is the big day. Today, we the people of Central Mexico extinguish all fires, and throw out all household idols, cooking implements and the three traditional hearth stones of our home. Our homes have been meticulously swept and cleaned of all debris. We wait - anxiously and fearfully for night to fall. The children must not doze, for if they do, and the critical cosmic rite about to be performed fails, we will all be transformed into mice. Tonight, like every fifty-two years, we watch in the darkness as a procession of priests, clothed in the elaborate costumes of the most important deities, ascend to the summit of Uixachtlan, the mountain on the outskirts of today’s Mexico. We’ve climbed walls, rooftops or mountain peaks to await the first glimpse of fire. It is now precisely midnight. We are about to partake in the traditional sacrifice which summons the cosmic forces to witness the event which will determine if there will be an inception of another fifty-two years. Man himself, at this intense moment is insignificant. We watch. The chosen captive of war, a ruler or great captain, is sacrificed, his heart being ripped out and offered to the god of fire. In this open chest cavity of the freshly-dead body, a special fire priest places the sacred fire board and whirls a fire stick between his palms until the first sparks of fire are elicited. This flame signaled all would be well with the Universe for another fifty-two years. Time had been purified. This drama, so charged with fear and anxiety, symbolizes the most prominent features of the Aztec belief system. The Aztecs were a mystified, meditative people, ridden with questions about the essence of human and divine, perplexed by the real meanings of life and death. The cosmos, warfare and human sacrifice all had a profound impact on the life of every Aztec, and these were continued on page two