Mesoamerican folk religion

The cosmological view in Mesoamerica is strongly connected to the Mesoamerican gods and the spiritual world. The construction and division of the universe, therefore is a kind of visual and symbolic set up for their religious beliefs. Like the many different peoples of Mesoamerica, the detailed surface of the cosmological views tends to be many. They all come together though, in the belief of a fundamental cosmic order, in which the two elements of time and space are the most important. These two elements are seen as the center of the universe and make the center of the quadruplicity, known as the Mesoamerican world tree quite close to the quincunx.

The importance of time is seen in the cycles of life, death and regeneration, which are something worshiped in almost everything existing. Time itself, is symbolized in the cycle of the sun, both because the sun separates night and day, and also because the death and regeneration of the sun itself is the reason for a new era.

As an expansion of quincunx, which then symbolizes space, we find two axes that combine the universe with the inclusion of both the natural and the spiritual, vertically and horizontally. It is called the axis mundi, which in the case of mesoamerican cosmology, vertically consists of three worlds and horizontally of four directions and a center.

In the vertical axis we find the world that we know on the surface of earth, in the middle a world above us where the stars are seen and then a world below our surface. These three worlds are not to be confused with the Christian division of a heaven and a hell, although the Spaniards, in trying to convert the native Mesoamerican, made the two comparable by doing so.

The Mesoamerican pantheon includes dozens of gods and goddesses in addition to the major deities described below.

Tlaloc (Aztec) / Chaac (Maya) / Dzahui (Mixtec) / Cocijo (Zapotec) - Chief rain god; deity of water, fertility, rain, and storms, also with mountain associations. Recognizable by his goggle-like eyes and distinctive fangs.

Quetzalcoatl (Aztec) / Kukulkan (Yucatec Maya) / Q'uq'umatz (K'iche' Maya) - Plumed Serpent; god of wind, priests, merchants, and the link between the earth and the sky.

Tezcatlipoca (Aztec) - "Smoking Mirror"; guileful omnipresent deity of cosmic struggle, feuds, rulers, sorcerers, and warriors; the jaguar is his animal counterpart.

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Wikipedia