Tecciztecatl and Metztli: the Aztec myth of the Moon and the rabbit

Anyone looking at the full Moon from Mexico sees not a human face, as Europeans do, but a rabbit. This image has a precise mythical origin, told by the Aztecs in the myth of the creation of the Fifth Sun. At the centre of the story are two gods, one rich and proud, the other poor and sick, and a test of courage before a great fire lit in the sacred city of Teotihuacan.

The fire of Teotihuacan

The tale can be read in the seventh book of the Florentine Codex, compiled in the sixteenth century under the direction of Bernardino de Sahagún. When the world was still plunged in darkness, the gods gathered at Teotihuacan and asked who would agree to become the Sun. Tecciztecatl, a rich and proud god, offered himself. The gods also chose a second candidate, Nanahuatzin, small and covered in sores, who accepted in silence.

For four days the two did penance. Tecciztecatl offered precious feathers, balls of gold, thorns of coral and the finest incense. Nanahuatzin offered green reeds, agave spines wet with his own blood and the scabs of his sores. Meanwhile a great fire was burning, into which whoever wished to become a heavenly body would have to throw himself. The contrast between the offerings is deliberate: the tale sets outward luxury against true sacrifice, and prepares the outcome of the test.

The leap and the rabbit

When the moment came, Tecciztecatl approached the flames four times, and four times he drew back in fear. Then Nanahuatzin closed his eyes and threw himself into the fire without hesitation. Only after him, ashamed, did Tecciztecatl leap too. According to the myth, an eagle and a jaguar followed them, and ever since they have borne the marks of burning on their feathers and coat.

The gods waited a long time, until in the east Nanahuatzin rose, transformed into the Sun. Immediately afterwards Tecciztecatl rose too, as bright as he. The gods judged that two equally bright heavenly bodies were too many, and one of them ran and struck Tecciztecatl's face with a rabbit. His light dimmed, and he became the Moon. The rabbit remained imprinted on his face, where it can still be seen.

The name of the Moon

The name Tecciztecatl is connected with tecciztli, the great sea shell, a symbol that in Nahua culture was associated with the Moon and with fertility. Metztli, on the other hand, is the common Nahuatl word for the Moon, also used as the name of the deity. Some scholars have proposed that the very name of Mexico derives from an expression meaning «in the navel of the Moon», but the etymology is disputed and there is no agreement.

Teotihuacan, where the myth places the birth of the heavenly bodies, had already been a ruined city for centuries when the Aztecs visited it. It was they who gave the two great pyramids the names Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon, by which we still know them. The myth of Tecciztecatl thus explains, in a single tale, the origin of a heavenly body, the design on its face and the meaning of a sacred place older than those who told the story.