Episode 34 – The Fifth Sun – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 34 Show Notes

Source: Aztec Mythology

This week on MYTH, we’re going to vacation in sunny Mexico. You’ll hear me struggle with yet more intimidatingly difficult names, you’ll learn that hummingbirds are badasses, and you’ll discover that a flaming snake-spear might be the most metal god weapon ever. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll discover why you should never trust a creepy dude who serenades random women by moonlight. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 34, “The Fifth Sun”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Up until now, we haven’t ventured into the batshit world of Aztec mythology, mostly because the long, tongue-twisting names are super intimidating, but with December upon us, a little sun seems like a good idea. We’ll start, appropriately enough, with one of the most important deities of the Aztec cosmology, and patron god of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. It’s not Quetzalcoatl who’s probably the only Aztec god you might have heard of before (although he’ll definitely play a part). No, we’re starting with Huitzilopochtli (wih-zi-lo-pocht-li), the god of war, the sun, and human sacrifice.
It gets a little confusing since a lot of the Aztec gods were fairly warlike, and often had a fondness for a specific aspect of warfare, but Huitzilopochtli (whose name roughly translates to Hummingbird of the South or Blue Hummingbird on the Left, as the Aztecs believed the south was the left side of the world) was the primary war god. Interestingly, although his name is Hummingbird, his spirit animal was the eagle. The hummingbird is still important to Aztec culture, however, as they were considered to be the reincarnations of dead warriors.
There are a couple of stories detailing his birth and rise to power, all of which are incompatible with one another. The simplest version has him as the son of the primordial creator god and goddess of duality Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl (which some sources say are two halves of an androgynous primordial god Ometeotl, although there is a lot of dispute as to whether this latter dual god exists or is the result of bad writing from an early source), along with his brothers Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Xipe Totec, who each reign over a cardinal direction. Queztalcoatl, the White Tezecatlipoca and god of light, mercy, and wind, presides over the West; Huitzilopochtli, the Blue Tezecatlipoca and god of war, presides over the South; Xipe Totec, the Red Tezcatlipoca and god of gold, farming, spring time, and renewal (he was often depicted wearing a flayed human skin as a sign of his death/resurrection schtick), presides over the East; and Tezcatlipoca, the Black Tezcatlipoca and god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery, and the Earth, presides over the North. Huitzilopochtli was the smallest and youngest of the four, so he had a lot to prove. He and Quetzalcoatl were sent out by their mother and father to bring order to the world, creating fire, the first humans, the earth, and the sun.
A second version has the world being created and destroyed multiple times by the sibling rivalry of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca (opposing gods of light and darkness). The four brothers created the world out of the great void, including the first people, who were huge giants. First, though, they had to whoop some ass. The great earth crocodile Cipactli, who had mouths at every one of her many joints, kept devouring anything they tried to place on the water to begin creation. After slaughtering her (and using her body as part of the basis for the earth), they got down to it. They also created the first gods, foremost among them being the water gods: Tlaloc (god of rain and fertility) and Chalchiuhtlicue (goddess of beauty, lakes, rivers, and oceans). The new world was in need of a sun, and Tezcatlipoca the Black was chosen, proving that even gods can be complete idiots. I mean, seriously, how can you expect the god of night and darkness to be a good sun? Surprising no one, he was only able to become half a sun (some versions say it was because he only had one leg).
Initially, the gods decided fuck it, no one on the planet knows any better: we’ll stick with our shitty half sun. That worked for a while, but soon, Tezcatlipoca started to get a big head about being the sun, and thought of himself as the most important god because of it. This ticked off his brother, Quetzalcoatl the White, setting off a sibling rivalry that would echo through the ages when he took his club and knocked the sun clean out of the sky. Tezcatlipoca retaliated by sending his jaguars out to eat all of the people who were terrified at having been suddenly plunged into total darkness with deadly beasts. Thus ended the First Sun.
The gods tried again to create a world, this time inhabiting it with normal-sized people (the story doesn’t say why they decided they didn’t like the giants). Since Tezcatlipoca had killed everybody last time, Quetzalcoatl was instead made the sun this time around. Years passed, and the people began to grow wicked and to turn their backs on the gods (a common theme in creation myths). Tezcatlipoca, pissed at not receiving the honor he was due (and still holding a grudge about not being the sun anymore), used his sorcery to turn the animalistic people into beasts (specifically into monkeys, which is why the creatures are so human-like and so mischievous). Quetzalcoatl had loved his people, however flawed, and blew all of the miserable monkeys off the face off the planet with a powerful hurricane. He resigned his post as sun to try again. Thus ended the Second Sun.
This time around, Tlaloc, god of rain, thunderstorms, and earthly fertility became the sun. As always, Tezcatlipoca was around to twirl his Snidely Whiplash mustache and ruin shit. Unlike most storm gods, Tlaloc was happily married to Xochiquetzal, goddess of sex, flowers, and corn. At least, he was until Tezcatlipoca started coming around while Tlaloc was at work and hitting on his wife. Even goddesses can be tempted by a bad boy, and she ends up running away with the dark god of sorcery. Tlaloc, reasonably enough, is plunged into a deep depression, causing a drought to sweep the world. Also reasonably enough, the people began to beg the gods to relent and bring the rains, but Tlaloc was still super depressed and became pissed off at the people asking him to allow the storms to come (because even gods can misdirect their anger). After the billionth time someone asked him for rain, he lost it. “Fine! You fuckers want rain! Have rain! Have a fucking rain of fire!” Flames poured out of the sky in a horrifying mockery of any kind of a merciful god, consuming everyone and everything until the earth was a barren cinder. Tlaloc was fired and a new world was made from the ashes of the old. Thus ended the Third Sun.
Without having to spend all of his time as the sun, Tlaloc was finally able to move on and meet somebody new. He soon married his new girlfriend Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of rivers, streams, seas, and storms. She was a very sweet, compassionate goddess, so the brothers decided that maybe it was time to try a female sun. Male suns kept wrecking the place in new and creative ways, so they all agreed and she became the new sun. She was very loving to her people, and made a great sun, which of course pissed off our perennial villain, Tezcatlipoca. He became jealous of how much her people loved her, so one day, when he was visiting the new sun, he decided to get in her head. “You know, you’re a lot like me. I mean, you can lie with the best of them, but I know that you’re not really as loving and kind as you pretend to be. You’re really just as selfish as I am, and are pretending not to be a bitch just so everyone will love you. And kudos, ‘cause it’s working. You’ve got everyone else fooled.” Chalchiuhtlicue was a sensitive soul, and the idea that someone thought she was so wretched and selfish crushed her self-confidence. She began to weep blood in an unending tide that soon drowned the world, forcing the gods to turn all of the humans into fish. Thus ended the Fourth Sun.
Quetzalcoatl refused to accept another total loss of his beloved people, and so he resolved to do something about it this time. He snuck down into the underworld and headed for the lowest and northernmost section known as Mictlan, which was the main place people went after they died, although not the only one. Warriors who died in battle and those who died as sacrifices to the gods went to the east and accompanied the sun in the mornings. Women who died in childbirth went to the west and accompanied the sun when it set in the evenings. People who drowned, or otherwise died at the hand of the rain god Tlaloc (such as by lightning strike or certain diseases) went south to the paradise known as Tlalocan.
Mictlan, much like the Dante’s Inferno much, much later, had nine levels. The dead began at the first level and had to make the difficult, dangerous trek to the ninth level in order to find peace. Crossing a mountain range where the mountains crashed into one another, navigating a field where razor-sharp knives were tossed by the breeze in massive storms of flashing steel, and swimming through a river of blood protected by fierce jaguars, to name a few, typically took a soul four solid years to get through. Quetzalcoatl, being a god, was able to avoid all of this unpleasantness and approach the home of the Lord of the Underworld, the death god Mictlantecuhtli, and his wife Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Underworld.
He had intended to steal the bones of the dead and get out, but they were hidden, and the death gods had seen Quetzalcoatl coming. Mictlantecuhtli was a terrifying god, a six foot tall blood-spattered skeleton with eyeballs in the sockets of his bare, bloody skull. He wore a headdress decorated with owl feathers, a necklace of human eyeballs, and earrings made of human bones. He offered the god a deal: if Quetzalcoatl would travel four times around his realm, blowing on a conch shell, Mictlantecuhtli would give him the bones of the dead he sought. This seemed reasonable, although he couldn’t imagine why the death god wanted such a thing, so Quetzalcoatl agreed to the terms.
He was handed a conch shell and sent on his way. Only after he left the windowless temple of the death god did he realize he had been tricked. The conch shell had not been drilled into an instrument, as he had been led to believe. Instead, it was a normal, holeless shell, incapable of making the required sound. Quetzalcoatl was a hero deity for a reason, though, and he wasn’t about to be stuck in the underworld forever trying to accomplish the impossible. From the depths of the earth, he summoned worms. They crawled over and through the shell, boring holes through it per the gods directions. In order to get the shell to sound out as loud as the death god requires, he summons a swarm of bees from the fields to enter the shell, which rings out with stentorian blasts as the god easily walked around the kingdom four times.
Mictlantecuhtli had actually planned to hand over all of the bones of the dead, but once he realizes that the god might actually pull it off, he stops being even a little honorable. He tries to take the bones and hide them, but Quetzalcoatl is now expecting such tricks and heads to the boneyard as soon as he finishes his task and runs off with them. Angry now, Mictlantecuhtli orders his undead minions to dig a massive pit trap for the god along the path to the exit. He saw the pit, and skirted around it, but out from underfoot, a quail suddenly burst out of the grass and took wing. This startled the god (because who expects to find a random bird in hell), and he missed his footing and tumbled into the pit trap.
On the way down into the very, very deep pit, he bounces off of the rock walls a few times, battering and breaking his body (along with the bones he was carrying). After falling for what felt like forever, he hit. Hard. The impact killed the god and broke more of the bones he was carrying. His body was picked at by the quail, as were the bones, before Quetzalcoatl woke up from his death (I’m not exactly clear on the details here). He gathered up the scattered bones and finished making his escape from the underworld. Once back on the surface, he dipped the bones in his own blood (he was still bleeding from the many scrapes and cuts he had taken in the fall) and brought the people back to life. The bones were different sizes now, though, which is why people are different heights. They opened their eyes onto a world lit by Huitzilopochtli, the current sun (see, I told you this story was about him – we just had to get there).
Enter the Tzitzimitl, a group of skeletal goddesses linked to the stars, especially the stars you can see around the sun during a solar eclipse, and related to fertility and birth. They became jealous of their larger, brighter, more important brother. Led by Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the moon, the goddesses stormed the sun to try and take over the sky. Each night, they attack, and you can see how close they are to winning by how bright the stars are that night, but they are always beaten back by Huitzilopochtli. His important work during the day drains him, and he needs strength for his nightly fight, which is why the Aztecs provided him with many human sacrifices.
They also offered sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca to avoid offending him and drawing his judgement (as we’ve seen, he can be very petty). To Quetzalcoatl, who opposed fatal sacrifices, they offered of their own blood (much as he had done for them). If the sacrifices ever ceased, or if humanity ever failed to please the gods, the fifth sun would end in a cataclysmic earthquake that would shatter the world, allowing the Tzitzimitl to slay the sun and, shortly thereafter, all of humanity who had been strengthening him for so long.
A different version of this story also exists, which features Huitzilopochtli more prominently. The earth goddess Coatlicue, a woman wearing a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands, and skulls, was the mother of many of the first gods. She had four hundred sons, known as the Centzon Huitznaua (the stars of the southern sky), and one daughter, Coyolxauhqui (the moon goddess we met in the Fifth Sun). One day, the earth goddess was sweeping her temple when a bundle of hummingbird feathers fell from the sky. The hummingbird was sacred, believed to be the soul of a warrior, so instead of throwing the feathers into the trash, she tucked them under her large, flaccid breasts. Seriously, the the big, drained boobs are a major part of how she was depicted as a mother goddess who had breast fed 401 children.
The warrior’s soul somehow impregnated her, which pissed off her other children. Some versions say it was because of her promiscuity, but honestly, why are 401 children okay, but 402 is a big problem? Whatever the reason, brothers and sister decided that their mother needed to die. They found her on Mount Coatepec, or Serpent Hill, near Tula, Hidalgo in Mexico. In some versions of the story, the unborn Huitzilopochtli hears them surrounding her and sentencing her to death. In others, they actually behead and kill her, and two huge, writhing serpents of blood spurted from her severed neck, facing each other as a sort of head as she died. In either event, Huitzilopochtli leaps out of his mother’s vagina, fully grown and dressed in battle armor to either defend or avenge his mother. He held a shield in one hand and Xiuhcoatl, a fire-serpent deity, in the other as his spear.
He charges into battle, attacking his sister first since she was the ringleader of this whole affair. They fight, but she is no match for the war god, and he soon beheads her, then holds up her severed head to watch him as he dismembers her body into tiny pieces, then throws the pieces from the mountain to make sure she wouldn’t regenerate. That done, he hurled her head into the sky (where it would become the moon) and chased after his 400 brothers, who fled from him in fear. They scattered through the sky, and he gives chase. This is why the stars disappear at the first light of the sun every day, as he is still chasing his wicked brothers, seeking vengeance.
These two creation stories are very different, and fairly incompatible, but they’re both undeniably cool. The gods have some truly incredible forms, and the stories are full of blood, sex, and betrayal. It amazes me that these stories aren’t more well-known and more prevalent in modern media. My guess is that the crazy intimidating names are the main reason, which is a real shame. I think we’ve shed enough mythological blood to appease the sun god for another day, which means it’s time for gods and monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s monster is el sombreron.
The name refers both to a Mexican boogeyman and a major Guatemalan legend, although both appear to be based on the same story. The Guatemalan legend is a lot more thorough, so that’s the one I’ll be telling here.
Once upon a time, in a little Mayan village, twins were born to a hatmaker and his wife, two boys. The couple was thrilled with their two bundles of joy. Initially. As they grew up, one of the boys was kind, soft-spoken, and even-keeled; the other was a total dick. He was the kind of asshole kid who, when told to do something by his parents, went and did the exact opposite. They hoped it was just a phase, but as he kept growing, he kept being a little shit.
He wasn’t cruel, just a mischievous nuisance. He’d do things like hide his brother’s favorite toy, steal fruit from neighbor’s gardens, tease other children, knock over the milk (which was harder to come by in those days), make a racket when he was supposed to be quiet, and tell his teachers to piss off when they asked him a question. Basically, he was Bart Simpson.
When they could stand it no more, the boys parents went to a brujo for advice. In Mayan culture, the brujos were known as wise men, learned in the arts of magic, and were said to have the power to cure any sickness. They could cure bodies, minds, and spirits, and they always knew how to cure anything, so the couple hoped they could help their troublesome son. They explained the situation, and the brujo sat for a long time, thinking deeply. After a time, he nodded to himself. “Here’s what you need to do: return to your shop and make a huge sombrero, the biggest hat you’ve ever made. Bring it to me, and I will solve your problem.”
It was a strange request, but the brujos were strange men, so the hatmaker went immediately home and got to work. He worked feverishly for several days, making a sombrero so large that it could have comfortably fit over the heads of several villagers at once. When it was done, it was far too large for him to carry through town alone, so he asked his good son to help him out, along with a few of his neighbors (who were sick of the little demon next door and more than happy to help fix his ass). They loaded it up onto the cart, and the hatmaker drove it to the brujo’s home.
“Very good! This is indeed a very large hat, big enough, I think, to hold my magic. Wait outside, please.” The brujo lit candles and placed rose petals on the altar, then closed his eyes and said a blessing. When everything was still and calm, he began to chant and weave his spell. No one was ever allowed to watch the brujos work, so the hatmaker waited outside for hours as he cast his magic into the hat. As the sun was just starting to set, the door opened, and the brujo emerged, tired but smiling. “It is done. Take the hat home and place it in the middle of the floor in your house. Leave it there overnight. The magic will take over from there.”
The man took the hat home, and did as he was told. Nothing happened, so the family went to bed, disappointed. A loud crash woke the hatmaker and his wife out of a restless sleep. It had come from the living room, where the sombrero sat. He leapt out of bed and rushed to see what had happened. I don’t know what he was expecting, but it sure as shit wasn’t a hat that was growling and moving on its own like a living thing. He stood there in shock, frozen, until he heard a voice. “Papa! Papa, help me!” It was his son’s voice, and it was coming from beneath the suddenly living sombrero.
He lifted up the hat’s brim and, sure enough, he could see his son seated in the middle of the thing, thrashing violently and crying. “Get it off me! I saw you put the hat here, and I wanted to know what you were trying to hide, so I climbed under it while you were asleep, and now it’s stuck to me. I’m sorry, Papa! Please, just take it off my head!” The hatmaker tried to tug the hat off his son’s head, but now matter how he yanked, it didn’t budge. He rushed over to get his neighbors to help him, but even with several strong men pulling, the hat stayed stuck to the boy’s head.
With the hat stuck permenantly to his head, and he was forced to go about his days wearing it constantly. He began to be called El Sombreron, or “the Big Hat”. No longer was he a torment. Instead, the villagers would laugh at him, his tiny legs churning under the massive hat all that anyone could see. The magic of the hat kept him from growing any taller (or maybe the weight of the hat was enough to keep him from growing), so he got older and smarter, but not bigger.
They didn’t laugh at him for long, though. His hat was magic, after all, and since he couldn’t really do much else, he studied the spells woven into the hat and began to learn how to control them. He learned to become invisible, to walk up walls and on the ceiling, and to walk through walls, among other things. He got good enough at it that he began to run invisibly through the streets stealing fruit and flipping over carts as he passed. At night, he would sneak invisibly into his neighbor’s stables and steal their donkeys. The people prayed he would go away, but he never did, and to this day, he wanders the countryside, invisible and causing mischief.
The Mexican version of the story is a little less innocent. This El Sombreron is a short man dressed in black with a thick, brightly colored belt. He wears a large, black hat and boots that make a great deal of noise when he walks. The story goes that in the neighborhood of La Recoleccion, in Guatemala, there lived a beautiful young woman named Susana, with long dark hair and big hazelnut eyes. One night, under a full moon, Susana stood on her balcony, admiring the night sky. Out of the darkness, a short figure in a big hat approached her, guitar in hand. He was struck by her beauty, and began to play and sing to her, a serenade. Unfortunately, her parents came to see what was happening and saw that their daughter was not in her room.
They forced her inside, but she found she could not sleep. Every time she tried, she would hear the guitar start up again, from the street or even from inside her room. Every time she tried to eat, she found that the food had been covered in dirt, and was now inedible. Her parents, desperate to be rid of this cursed figure, took her to the priest who cut off her long hair, doused it in holy water, and began to pray over it. After a few days of this, El Sombreron left her alone and she was finally able to eat and sleep again.
The man, sometimes known as Tzipitio, Tzizimite, or the goblin, is always dressed the same and always carries a silver guitar. He is drawn to beautiful women with long hair, apparently because he has a thing for braids. He is known to braid the manes and tails of the horses he rides, or of the village dogs if a horse isn’t handy. When he finds such a girl, he serenades her with his silver guitar and braids her hair, then if she responds to his singing, he proceeds to stalk her. He keeps her awake at night with his playing and singing, and he puts soil in her food to keep her from eating (I don’t know why).
So if you’re approached by a strange man in a large hat at sunset, singing and playing a silver guitar for you, whatever you do, don’t encourage him and maybe consider getting a haircut. That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you like what you’ve heard, I’d appreciate a review on iTunes. These reviews really help increase the show’s standing and let more people know it exists. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Before we go, I have an exciting bit of news. I recently did a guest spot on Unfollow the Revolution, an improvised post-apocalyptic comedy, where I got to play an evil but friendly warden of a reeducation camp. It was a lot of fun to do, and the episode, Season 3 Episode 9, is available now. Go check it out!
Next time, you’ll want to settle in snug and cozy (in front of a fire maybe?) because it’s time for our annual holiday special. You’ll see that grandparents should be careful what they promise, that blizzards are real bastards, and that random animals helping out women in need is much older than Disney. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll meet the crazy cat lady who really, really hates children. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.