Mountains in the Worldview of the Nahuas of Central Mexico

Abstract

Mountains as reservoirs of water have always been an immanent and crucial part of the Mesoamerican ritual landscape. Considered living beings, mountains are an important component of the core part of the Native worldview, which is particularly observable in Central Mexico, a region dominated by the highest peaks in Mesoamerica. Long before the Spanish conquest, the Nahua people who live in the area adopted and developed the ancient Mesoamerican tradition of sacred mountains, ritual landscapes and the agricultural cycle and have preserved it to this day, despite the efforts of Spanish missionaries after the conquest. This paper deals with the position of mountains within the framework of Nahua ritualism, as it has been preserved in Nahua communities in Central Mexico. The aim is to point out their central role as the structural axis of the Nahua worldview, as places where rituals associated with rainmaking, fertility and the agricultural cycle are performed.