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The Americas · Legend of the Suns (Leyenda de los Soles)

Four worlds destroyed, humans made from old bones

EvidenceDocumentedThe text exists and is quoted from a published translation. What it describes is a separate question.What this means
ReferenceLegend of the Suns (Leyenda de los Soles)
Written1558 CE, Nahuatl, from older Aztec tradition
SetThe ages before this one
Four earlier worlds ended by jaguars, wind, a rain of fire, and a flood. Quetzalcoatl goes down to the underworld, takes the bones of the last humans, grinds them, and the gods bleed onto the powder to make the people of the Fifth Sun.

Summary by the editors. Translation: Summary in my own words

Read it literally

Recycled human material plus divine blood, the same formula as Atrahasis on the other side of the world. Our world is the fifth attempt, like Hesiod's fifth race.

What scholars say

Written down after the Spanish conquest.

Looks like technology Strange time Council of gods
People and places hereHesiod

Quick answers about Legend of the Suns

Where is Legend of the Suns found?

Legend of the Suns (Leyenda de los Soles) (The Americas). Translation quoted: Summary in my own words.

When was Legend of the Suns written?

1558 CE, Nahuatl, from older Aztec tradition.

What do scholars say about Legend of the Suns?

Written down after the Spanish conquest.

Rabbit holes in this passage

TextAtrahasisAccording to the Babylonian epic Atrahasis, the first humans were made partly from the flesh and blood of a god who was killed because he had intelligence. Overworked junior gods had gone on strike, and humans were the fix; then people grew too noisy, and the Flood followed. What went wrong with the plan?TextLegend of the SunsThe Aztec account says four earlier worlds ended in jaguars, wind, fiery rain and flood, and the people turned into monkeys, turkeys or fish. To make us, Quetzalcoatl fetched the old humans' bones from the underworld, the bones were ground like maize, and the gods bled on the meal. Why did the Fifth Sun get such an ending?

Sources

  1. Atra-hasis, ed. and trans. W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Oxford, 1969)Primary text
  2. Legend of the Suns (Codex Chimalpopoca, 1558), trans. John Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs (University of Arizona Press, 1992)Primary text

Scholarly dates are rounded. The wording follows the named public-domain translation.

Updated