The Myths of Mexico & Peru

Chapter 35: The Aculhuaque

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Archaeology & Anthropology History - Ancient Mythology, Legends & Folklore

About This Book

An illustrated survey of pre-Columbian civilizations and their myth systems, beginning with Mexican society and its pantheon and presenting major myths, rituals, cosmologies, and legends—including Aztec and Maya traditions and representative figures such as the feathered‑serpent and night and rain deities. It examines Maya origins, narrative cycles, and ritual practice, then turns to the civilizations of the Andean world and their mythic motifs, and offers comparative interpretation alongside archaeological observations, bibliographic references, a glossary, and numerous illustrations that connect mythic narratives to surviving monuments and artifacts.

The Aculhuaque

Next to them in point of order of tribal arrival were the Aculhuaque, or Acolhuans. The name means “tall” or “strong” men, literally “People of the Broad Shoulder,” or “Pushers,” who made a way for themselves. Gomara states in his Conquista de Mexico that they arrived in the valley from Acolhuacan about A.D. 780, and founded the towns of Tollan, Colhuacan, and Mexico itself. The Acolhuans were pure Nahua, and may well have been the much-disputed Toltecs, for the Nahua people always insisted on the fact that the Toltecs were of the same stock as themselves, and spoke an older and purer form of the Nahua tongue. From the Acolhuans sprang the Tlascalans, the inveterate enemies of the Aztecs, who so heartily assisted Cortés in his invasion of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, or Mexico.