Atamalcualiztli ou à la recherche du tamoanchan perdu essai d’interprétation d’une fête religieuse des anciens mexicains
Abstracts
The Aztecs used to celebrate an amazing festival every eight years, called Atamalcualiztli. Based on testimonies in the nahuatl language and on pictographic manuscripts found during the sixteenth century, this study reveals that the fasting ritual during this celebration was, first a means to let the food rest, and also a way to commemorate an irremediable fault committed by the Gods in the Tamoanchan, some kind of primitive heaven. In addition, if you bring together a sacred hymn the Aztecs used to sing during this ceremony and the Popol Vuh, some undeniable similarities between the Aztec and the Maya world view appear. In both conceptions, the life cycle of maize was evoked thanks to a myth based on the same narrative scheme: a sexual fault committed next to a tree and a ballgame in the underworld.
References
Electronic reference
Patrick Saurin, « Atamalcualiztli ou à la recherche du tamoanchan perdu essai d’interprétation d’une fête religieuse des anciens mexicains », Archives de sciences sociales des religions [Online], 119 | juillet - septembre 2002, Online since 05 September 2011, connection on 28 March 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/assr/23222 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/assr.23222
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