In the preconquest society, there were apparently nothing, linking the fate of a person or his "soul" after his death with his behavior during his earthly life. His way of life, would rather affect his life in this world. Much more important were the way of dying. I see evidence of a fundamental opposition between a "good death" and a "bad death" in Nahua Thought. A person dying a "good death", sacrificed simultaneously his life to the gods and the altepetl. The best expectations had the ones, falling on the battle ground. The Mother role however, was metaphorically compared to the role of the male warrior and a women, dying in childbed, was given the same honours as the Soldier, falling in battle. Both categories sacrificed themselves to the gods and for the sake of the community. Together with those fortunate, sacrificed to the gods, all these categories of people went after death to the house of the sun, and were allowed the the privilege of escorting the sun on the firmament.

People who drowned or suffered a death somehow related to water, went to Tlalocan, which may be understood as the "paradise" of the Rain god Tlaloc. A "bad death", then was the normal death at home in your own bed. A normal or "bad" death meant only a loss to the community. The good death meant, although the loss of an individual may be felt as a loss, at the same time a contribution to the survival of the altepetl and the world. Those unfortunate souls dying a bad death, came to Mictlan, the Land of the Death, which hardly can be interpreted as a kind of paradise. Mictlan was primarily some kind of a dark storing place for human bones. Apparently, the Nahuas, in contrast to most of their neighbors, had no elaborated notions of an afterlife for the majority of the souls. The only exemptions were the fortunate categories already mentioned, and maybe members of the high nobility who might be transformed into divine beings. Therefore, there was a continuously expansion in the number of deities in the Nahua "pantheon". At the same time, other deities merged or were simply forgotten.

The "souls" of the macehualtin, who after a long and exhausting voyage arrived in Mictlan, simply ceased to exist and eventually disappeared. This voyage had a duration of four years. It had some resemblance with the purgatory in Christian thought, and of course, this parallel was sometimes used by the friars. After this period of time, the relatives ceased, conducting mortuary and memorial ceremonies. The period of mourning was over and in a certain way, the memory of the dead was gone. Actually, the dead returned to this world as birds or butterflies, but there were no opportunities to return or to be reborn in the shape of something human. The Nahuas had probably no notions of reincarnation of any kind. Death meant death and nothing else for the majority of the macehualtin.

This did not however indicate that all hopes were gone, and that the death would remain meaningless for ever. Even they, whose souls had long disappeared and whose bones were stapled together in Mictlan could, if the gods would so choose, contribute positively. It was in Mictlan that Quetzalcoatl, after the fifth creation of the world, had collected the bones of the dead of the previous suns and used them to revitalise humanity. This Theme is widespread in Mesoamerican cultures. New human beings are created from the life energy of the previous generations. The individual human being is not unique and "new", but a synthesis of the united life forces of all human beings who have existed before him.

Yari Wrote: The Nahuali would be like a "familiar" in the wicka system -- one's magical animal form.

Lars Wrote:
This is an interesting observation. I am not familiar at all with the wicka system. But the concept that the Nahuas Sandsrom described, call "tonalli" seems to be some kind of an "animal guardian spirit"

Yari wrote:
There seems to be more than this. In our tradition and one book I read there is the concept of 3 souls -- Iheotl, Yolia and Tonalli. Both women and men have both. The Iheotl is associated with the liver and more base emotions and behaviors. The Yolia is associated with the heart and therefore the more compassionate emotions and behaviors. The Tonalli is is associated with the top of the head and therefore represents enlightened mind.

Lars Wrote:
In Classical Nahuatl these terms (mostly written: teyolia, ihiyotl and tonalli in the sources) refered to three components of the self that were shared by all living things, also animals etc. The human self also had many other components, however. This topic is treated extensively of Alfredo Lopez Austin in his book: The human body and ideology: nahua concepts (something like that, don't have the book here right now, it is a translation from Spanish). You should have a look at it. The entire vocabulary is discussed. Often, the individual was defined as ixtli in yollotl, which means Face and Heart or Body and self. This concept could imply the existence of an inner self, as well as a body-self. Today, we hardly have any possibilities of finding out how this concept was really understood in pre-hispanic times, we can only speculate. But the "person" was often referred to as "possessor of a face, possessor of a heart". Sandstrom in a ethnographic study of contemporary Nahuas in Vera Cruz, writes that in the community where he conducted fieldwork, the human "soul" consists of 7 tonalli components, but the animals have 22! They explain this by refering to the superior forces of the animals: Snakes or scorpions can for instance kill with their poison. The human beings have no such powers in them selves: they must make tools or borrow from the animals/plants etc. in order to achive the same results. In this community, the numbers of components in the tonalli determins the power of an organism. This tonalli is however also different from the pre-Hispanic concept.

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