Title: Leyenda de los Soles (Legend of the Suns) Author: Traditional/Oral, anonymous Nahua transcriber Creation Date: Pre-Columbian oral tradition, transcribed 1558 Location: Mesoamerica / Mexico
Summary
The Legend of the Suns is a Nahuatl-language narrative recounting the Aztec cosmogony of the Five Suns — five successive ages of the world, each created and destroyed by different gods, each inhabited by different forms of beings, and each ended by a different catastrophe. The first sun was destroyed by jaguars, the second by wind, the third by fire-rain, the fourth by flood. Humanity as we know it lives in the Fifth Sun, the Sun of Movement, which will end in earthquakes. The narrative then tells how Quetzalcoatl descended to the underworld (Mictlan) to retrieve the bones of the previous humanity, sprinkling them with his own blood to create the current race of humans. It recounts how the gods discovered maize — hidden inside a mountain, revealed by ants — to feed these new beings. The text concludes with the creation of the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan, where the gods gathered and the humble, pox-covered god Nanahuatzin threw himself into the fire to become the sun, while the proud Tecuciztecatl hesitated and became the lesser moon.
Why This Book Matters
The Legend of the Suns encodes the fundamental Aztec understanding of cosmic order: the universe is not stable but cyclical, perpetually created and destroyed, and its continuation requires sacrifice — specifically, the sacrifice of the gods themselves. The scene at Teotihuacan, where Nanahuatzin's self-immolation creates the sun, is one of the most powerful images in world mythology: the entire cosmic order depends on an act of courage by the lowliest deity. This narrative provides the theological foundation for Aztec ritual practice and the broader Mesoamerican concept of cosmic debt — the understanding that humans owe their existence to divine sacrifice and must reciprocate. Without this text, the intellectual structure of Aztec civilisation cannot be understood on its own terms.
Historical Context
The Legend of the Suns was transcribed in 1558 as part of a manuscript known as the Codex Chimalpopoca, which also includes the Annals of Cuauhtitlan. The transcriber was likely a Nahua intellectual trained in the Latin alphabet, working from oral tradition and possibly from painted codices. The Five Suns cosmogony was widely shared across Mesoamerica with regional variations and is depicted in sculptural form in the famous Sun Stone (Aztec Calendar Stone). The narrative reflects a civilisation that thought on cosmic time scales: the five ages represent thousands of years of creation and destruction, and the present age is understood to be impermanent. This cosmological framework was deeply connected to the ritual calendar and to the political legitimacy of the Aztec state.
Literary Significance
The Legend of the Suns achieves its power through mythic economy — each cosmic age is narrated with compressed intensity, and the accumulating pattern of creation-destruction-creation generates enormous momentum toward the climactic scene at Teotihuacan. The Quetzalcoatl underworld sequence is a masterful katabasis (descent narrative), belonging alongside Gilgamesh's journey to Utnapishtim and Orpheus's descent as one of the great underworld passages in world literature. The imagery is visceral and precise: Quetzalcoatl drops the bones and they shatter, which is why humans come in different sizes. The narrative voice is authoritative and swift, wasting nothing. The Fire at Teotihuacan episode — with its contrast between the humble Nanahuatzin and the proud Tecuciztecatl — introduces moral complexity into cosmogony in a way that elevates the narrative beyond mere origin story.
Research Notes
The Legend of the Suns is part of the Codex Chimalpopoca, a compound manuscript that also includes historical annals. Bierhorst's 1992 translation of the complete codex is the standard English version and includes extensive commentary. The text is relatively short and is sometimes published alongside other Aztec cosmogonic sources for comparative purposes. The mediation problem is typical of early colonial Nahuatl transcriptions: we cannot be certain how closely the written text follows oral performance conventions, and the colonial context may have influenced what was recorded. However, the cosmogonic content is well corroborated by pre-conquest sculptural and pictorial sources (the Sun Stone, various codices), confirming that the narrative's core elements are genuinely pre-Columbian. The text should be read alongside the Popol Vuh for a comparative picture of Mesoamerican creation thought — the parallels (multiple creations, underworld journeys, the centrality of maize) and divergences are illuminating.
The Reading
The world has been created and destroyed four times. We live in the fifth creation. The fifth will also end.
This is the cosmogonic vision of the Aztec peoples, set down in Nahuatl in 1558 as part of the manuscript known as the Codex Chimalpopoca -- written by an anonymous Nahua scribe who had learned the Latin alphabet but whose mind moved in the patterns of a far older tradition. The Legend of the Suns tells how the universe came to be through a sequence of cosmic catastrophes, each age ruled by a different god, each ending in the destruction of its inhabitants. It tells how the gods retrieved the bones of the dead and made new humans from their own blood. It tells how maize was discovered, hidden inside a mountain, and brought to the people. And it tells the story of the creation of the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan, where a humble, diseased god threw himself into the fire and became the light that sustains us all.
The narrative is swift, compressed, and extraordinary in its power. It moves through cosmic time with the economy of a creation that knows it is not permanent.
The First Sun: Four Jaguar
The first age of the world was called Four Jaguar. Its sun was Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, the god of night and sorcery. In this age, the inhabitants of the earth were giants -- enormous beings who could uproot trees with their hands but who ate only acorns and pine nuts, not maize, for maize had not yet been given to the world.
The first sun lasted 676 years. Then the jaguars came. They devoured the giants. They devoured the sun itself. The sky went dark. The world ended in the bellies of cats.
"The sun was eaten. In the year Thirteen Reed, the sun was destroyed. And everything was destroyed. The giants were eaten by jaguars. This was the first sun."
The account is terse, almost matter-of-fact. A world is created, populated, and annihilated in a few sentences. The style is the style of a people who have seen this before -- who know that creation is not a one-time event but a cycle, and that destruction is not the end but a transition.
The Second Sun: Four Wind
The second age was Four Wind, ruled by Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. In this age, the people ate mesquite seeds. They were not giants but ordinary-sized beings, and they lived for 364 years.
Then the wind came. A great hurricane swept the earth, tearing everything from its roots. The people were destroyed. Those who survived were transformed into monkeys -- carried into the trees by the wind, becoming the chattering primates of the forest.
"In one day they were destroyed. They were blown away by the wind. They became monkeys. Their homes, their trees -- everything was blown away."
The transformation of humans into animals is a recurring element of Mesoamerican cosmogony, and it carries a specific theological weight: each failed humanity leaves a trace of itself in the natural world. The monkeys are the remnants of the second creation, just as the jaguars' meal was the remnant of the first. Nothing is truly lost. It is only changed.
The Third Sun: Four Rain
The third age was Four Rain, ruled by Tlaloc, the rain god. In this age, the people ate a kind of water-grass seed. They lived for 312 years.
Then fire fell from the sky. Not rain but fire-rain -- a deluge of burning stones and volcanic ash that consumed the world. The people were destroyed. Those who survived were transformed into turkeys, into dogs, into butterflies.
"Rain of fire fell on them. They were burned. Their houses were burned. The entire world burned."
The brevity of the account is the account. A world -- its people, its houses, its trees -- reduced to ash in three sentences. The narrative does not pause for grief or reflection. It moves forward. The next age begins.
The Fourth Sun: Four Water
The fourth age was Four Water, ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of lakes and streams, "She of the Jade Skirt." In this age, the people ate a seed called cincocopi. They lived for 676 years.
Then the flood came. Water rose from everywhere -- from below, from the sky, from the mountains. The entire world was submerged. The sky fell into the water. The people were transformed into fish.
"It rained for fifty-two years. The sky fell. In one day they were destroyed. They became fish. The mountains were covered. The water was sustained for fifty-two years."
Four worlds. Four destructions. Jaguars, wind, fire, water. Each age ruled by a god. Each god overthrown. Each humanity destroyed and transmuted into animals. The pattern is not accidental: it is theological. The universe runs on cycles of creation and destruction, and the destruction of one age is the precondition for the creation of the next. Nothing is stable. Nothing is permanent. The cosmos itself is impermanent.
The Interregnum: The World Between Suns
After the fourth destruction, the world lay in darkness. There was no sun. The gods gathered to decide what to do. Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, took on the task of creating new humans for the new age.
But first, the bones. The bones of the previous humanity lay in the underworld, in Mictlan, the realm of the dead, guarded by Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead. Quetzalcoatl would have to go down and get them.
The Descent of Quetzalcoatl to Mictlan
Quetzalcoatl descended to the underworld. He was accompanied by his nahual -- his spirit double, his animal self, Xolotl, the dog-headed god of twins and monsters. Together they entered the realm of the dead.
Mictlantecuhtli, the skeletal Lord of Death, received them. He was willing to give up the bones -- but not without testing. "Very well," said Mictlantecuhtli, "you may take the bones. But first, blow this conch trumpet and circle the underworld four times."
He gave Quetzalcoatl a conch shell with no holes -- a trumpet that could not be played. Quetzalcoatl called worms to bore holes in the shell and bees to fly inside and make it hum. The shell sounded. Mictlantecuhtli, hearing the sound, was forced to relent.
But the Lord of Death was not finished with his tricks. As Quetzalcoatl gathered the bones -- the bones of a man and the bones of a woman -- Mictlantecuhtli told his servants to dig a pit in Quetzalcoatl's path. A quail flew up suddenly, startling the god. Quetzalcoatl stumbled. He fell into the pit. He dropped the bones, and they shattered.
The quail pecked at the scattered bones. Quetzalcoatl lay in the pit, stunned, perhaps dead for a moment -- even gods die briefly in the underworld. Then he rose, gathered the broken fragments, and carried them to the surface.
This is why humans come in different sizes. The bones were broken before they were reassembled. The tall and the short, the broad and the narrow -- all are consequences of Quetzalcoatl's fall in the underworld. The imperfection is built into us from the beginning.
The Creation of the Fifth Humanity
Quetzalcoatl brought the bones to Tamoanchan, the paradise of creation. There, the goddess Cihuacoatl -- Snake Woman -- ground them on a grinding stone, the same stone used to grind maize. The bone meal was placed in a jade bowl. Quetzalcoatl and the other gods bled themselves over the bowl, piercing their flesh with maguey thorns, mixing divine blood with ground bone.
From this mixture -- bone dust and god-blood -- the new humans were formed. We are made of the dead and the divine. We carry both within us: the remnants of those who came before and the sacrifice of those who made us. We owe a debt in both directions -- to the ancestors whose bones compose us and to the gods whose blood animates us.
"And that is why humans are called macehuales -- 'the ones merited by penance.' Because the gods bled over us. The gods did penance for us."
The debt is the foundation of the entire Aztec religious system. The gods gave their blood to make us. We owe them blood in return. This is not cruelty but reciprocity -- the cosmic transaction that keeps the universe in motion.
The Discovery of Maize
The new humans existed, but they had nothing to eat. The gods searched for sustenance. Quetzalcoatl saw a red ant carrying a kernel of maize and followed it. The ant had found the grain inside Tonacatepetl -- the Mountain of Sustenance -- a great mountain that contained all the world's food: maize of every colour, beans, amaranth, chia, sage.
Quetzalcoatl transformed himself into a black ant and followed the red ant into the mountain. He brought out maize and gave it to the gods. The gods chewed it and placed it on the lips of the new humans, and the humans grew strong.
But the mountain still needed to be opened fully. The rain gods -- the Tlaloque, the servants of Tlaloc -- struck the mountain with lightning and split it open. The maize spilled out: white maize, yellow maize, black maize, red maize. Beans and amaranth and all the other foods cascaded from the broken mountain. The rain gods gathered them and distributed them to the world.
Maize is not merely food in this cosmogony. It is the substance that makes human life possible. Without it, the bone-and-blood humans would have withered and died. With it, they could grow, multiply, build cities, keep the calendar, and make the offerings that the gods required. Maize is the bridge between divine creation and human civilisation.
The Creation of the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan
This is the supreme scene of the Legend of the Suns, and one of the most powerful episodes in all of world mythology.
The world had humans. The world had maize. But the world had no sun. Since the destruction of the Fourth Sun, the sky had been dark. The gods gathered at Teotihuacan -- the great city, the city of pyramids, the place where even the gods went to seek answers -- and they deliberated. Someone would have to become the sun. Someone would have to throw himself into the fire and be consumed and transformed into light.
Two gods volunteered. The first was Tecuciztecatl -- wealthy, proud, beautiful, magnificent in his offerings. He brought precious things to the sacrificial fire: balls of gold instead of grass balls, quetzal feathers instead of ordinary feathers, coral instead of thorns. Everything he offered was the finest, the most expensive, the most showy.
The second was Nanahuatzin -- small, humble, covered in sores and blisters, a god of no account. His offerings were poor: grass balls, pine branches, and the scabs from his own sores, which were all he had.
A great bonfire was built. The flames rose. The gods sat in two rows, flanking the fire, and they called upon Tecuciztecatl to jump.
Tecuciztecatl approached the fire. The heat was tremendous. He ran toward it -- and stopped. He could not do it. The flames were too hot, the terror too great. He tried again. He ran, and stopped. Four times he approached the fire. Four times his courage failed.
Then the gods turned to Nanahuatzin. The small, ugly, pox-covered god. He did not hesitate. He closed his eyes and threw himself into the fire. The flames consumed him instantly. He burned. He became the sun.
Tecuciztecatl, shamed by the courage of the lowliest god, finally threw himself in after. But he was second. He had hesitated. He became the moon -- the lesser light, the follower, the one who shines only with borrowed brightness.
"Nanahuatzin was the one who had the courage. He was the one who threw himself into the fire. Tecuciztecatl only followed. That is why the sun is brighter than the moon."
But the sun did not move. Nanahuatzin had become the sun, but he hung in the sky, motionless, burning the earth with his closeness. The gods asked: "What is wrong? Why does the sun not move?"
The sun spoke: "I require blood. I require the hearts of the gods. Without sacrifice, I will not move."
And so the gods sacrificed themselves. One by one they gave their blood, their hearts, to set the sun in motion. The wind god Ehecatl blew, and the sun began its journey across the sky. The cosmic order was established -- but it was established on sacrifice. The sun moves because the gods died for it. The world continues because something is always being given up.
The Fifth Sun: Four Movement
We live in the age of the Fifth Sun, called Four Movement -- Nahui Ollin. The prophecy is clear: this age will end in earthquakes. The earth will shake, the sky will fall, and the creatures of twilight -- the tzitzimime, the star-demons -- will descend and devour the living.
When the Fifth Sun ends, there may or may not be a sixth. The Legend of the Suns does not promise renewal. It describes a cosmos that runs on sacrifice and that will, eventually, run out of fuel. The sun requires blood. If the blood stops flowing, the sun stops moving. If the sun stops, the age ends.
This is a cosmogony without final comfort. There is no paradise at the end of history, no permanent redemption, no eternal rest. There is only the present sun, burning in the sky because a small, sick god had the courage to jump, sustained by the blood of the gods who died after him, and requiring the continued offerings of the humans who were made from bone dust and divine blood.
The Fifth Sun is moving. For now.
This post is part of Civilisations, a 149-book chronological journey through world literature. See the full collection →
The Legend of the Suns is preserved as part of the Codex Chimalpopoca, alongside the Annals of Cuauhtitlan. John Bierhorst's 1992 translation, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca (University of Arizona Press), is the standard English edition and includes extensive scholarly commentary.
Translated by John Bierhorst. The complete Codex Chimalpopoca including the Legend of the Suns — the essential Aztec cosmological text in a scholarly translation.
Disclaimer: some links in this post are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
