Citlaltlachtli
Authors: ASE Tech Team
Citlaltlachtli is the ball game of the stars.
Etymology and History
For ancient aztecs, the knowledge of the night skies and stars movement had great importance for their calendars and the measurement of both agricultural and sacred cycles. However, great part of this knowledge was lost as consequence of the Spanish conquest which occurred on continental America in the 16th century.
The elements of the Aztec society such as culture, economy and science is preserved in the tlacuilos, word that comes from the ancient Nahuatl word tlacuiloa, which means writing with drawings. These Tlacuilos where stored in the amoxcalli, meaning amoxtli: books and calli: house. Later their became known as codices; a word that came from the Latin word Codex which means written book.
After the Spanish conquest many of the pre-hispanic Codexes where destroyed, their main feature is that their where drawn in many different materials such as deer skin, amate paper or cotton fabric and they had no text only draws or glifos. However the collection of Mesoamerican customs continued prior to the Spanish conquest thanks to the work of some native indians and some Spanish priests, this codexes are known as Colonial Codexes and there is a change of the way of drawing because of the new techniques of drawing and the new materials imported from Europe, also because of the incorporation of descriptive text both in Spanish and Nahuatl.
Sadly, the Aztec astronomical knowledge in the remaining codexes is really small. The next image is one of the few that names some constellations and astronomical phenomena identified by the Aztec, it belong to the Primeros Memoriales (first memorials), which is a colonial manuscript of the 16th century written by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun.
The constellation of Gemini was called Citlaltlachtli, which means the ball game of the stars. This game was endowed with a ritual significance and used a natural rubber ball. It is said that the movement of the ball within the playing field refers to the movement of the sun and moon.[1][2][3]
Mythology
IAU Working Group on Star Names
Weblinks
- Prehispánicas
- Mythology
- Códice París
- REAL CÉDULA PROHIBIENDO LA HISTORIA GENERAL DE LAS COSAS DE NUEVA ESPAÑA DE FRAY BERNARDINO DE SAHAGÚN
Reference
- ↑ Herbert J. Spinden (1916). The Question of the Zodiac in America. New Series, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1916), pp. 53-80. doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/660290
- ↑ LOS CÓDICES DE MÉXICO pdf
- ↑ Códices coloniales de México
