Chalchiuhtlicue, the Sun who cried

Chalchiuhtlicue, the Sun who cried

Tumen Alma Fernanda Lira Chávez, Ana Paola Lagunas Mota, Camila Espinosa Mariño, Valentina Cabrera Peralta y María Fernanda San Román Orozco

English translation: Rubén Marrufo García León

Legend has it that there were four suns before this one of ours, the Sun of Movement.

The first Sun was Tezcatlipoca, the Earth’s Sun, and its reign lasted 676 years.

Quetzalcoatl overthrew Tezcatlipoca by beating him with a giant cane and throwing him into the water, and in this way, Quetzalcoatl became the Sun of the second age.

For 676 years, Quetzalcoatl was the Sun until Tezcatlipoca knocked it down with a kick and pushed it away with a strong wind.

Tezcatlipoca was no longer the Sun, but instead, he put Tlalocatecutli, “god of hell,” in his place, but this only lasted 364 years because Quetzalcoatl got rid of him by making fire rain from the sky.

Quetzalcoatl placed Chalchiuhtlicue as Sun, a very powerful water goddess with a very sensitive heart. She gave her people fertile and abundant lands, but it was not enough for everyone to love her.

The god Tezcatlipoca, jealous of her, decided to overthrow her by slandering her: “Chalchiuhtlicue is a hypocrite. She doesn’t love them; she doesn’t love her people.”

These attacks hurt the goddess so much that in year number 312 of her reign, the last, she began to cry without stopping and without realizing it began to flood the world.

To survive the flood, people had to transform into marine species. The heavens began to collapse.

The situation worsened so much that Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl had to turn into giant trees to prevent the skies from collapsing.

Quetzalcoatl’s works and the gods’ sacrifice founded the fifth Sun, the Nahui Ollin (4th movement), where we currently live. According to the elders, our era will end when Tezcatlipoca steals this Sun, and the universal catastrophe will come.

References

Castro, M. F. (2021). ¿Quién era Chalchiuhtlicue? La diosa azteca del agua. Red Historia. Recuperado de https://redhistoria.com/.

Moreno-de-los-Arcos, R. (2010). Los cinco soles cosmogónicos. México, DF, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Recuperado de https://historicas.unam.mx

MXCity. (2020). Espejo humeante o del mito de Tezcatlipoca, el gran dios de la oscuridad. Recuperado de https://mxcity.mx

Conacyt, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. (2021). Tláloc y Chalchiuhtlicue: dioses del agua. Ciudad de México, México: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Recuperado de https://conacyt.mx