Question for March 2021

Which was the most common superstition in Aztec times? Asked by Sheringdale Primary School. Chosen and answered by Professor Patrick Johansson.

‘Mexican Idea of Sacrifice to the Sun God’ - Lewis Spence (Click on image to enlarge)

They were beliefs not superstitions. If you died in war or in sacrifice you helped the sun to rise from east to the south (zenith), if you were a man, and to descend from the Zenith to the west if you were a woman who had died in her first pregnancy.

Picture source:-
Image scanned from The Gods of Mexico by Lewis Spence, T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., London, 1923, p. 301. NOTE: this illustration was based on an original found in the Codex Borgia. A stream of precious (human) blood flows from a victim of human sacrifice, via a priest representing the death god (centre right), to Tonatiuh, the Sun God, shown in the middle of the picture.

Professor Patrick Johansson has answered just this one question

Here's what others have said:

1 At 11.33am on Saturday April 3 2021, Martin Nikolas Liedtke wrote:

I have read in the “Florentine Codex: The soothsayers and Omens” (The Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, translation), that there were Omens, which can be seen as superstitions. One of my favorites is “The omen of the thirtieth Chapter, which telleth of sneezing. When someone sneezed, they said, in times past: “Someone Speaketh of me.” or they say: “Someone speaketh ill of me.” Or they said: “Some people discuss me.” It was thought that they made it evident, and knew, when they sneezed, that someone far away mentioned them.” (Page 193, i mentioned the book above)

Mexicolore replies: Thanks, Martin. Yes, that’s a great source!