Mictlan

Mictlan is the lowest and most general underworld of Aztec cosmology, the destination of the great majority of the dead, those who died of ordinary causes, as opposed to the select who went to the sun's paradise (warriors and sacrificial victims), to Tlalocan (those taken by water and rain), or to the nurse-tree heaven for dead infants.

Ruled by the skeletal death-god Mictlantecuhtli and his consort Mictecacihuatl, it lay in the far north and deep below, and reaching its final rest was not immediate but a grueling four-year journey through nine successive levels, each with its own hazard: rivers to cross, clashing mountains, obsidian winds that cut like knives, fields of blades. The dead were buried or cremated with goods to aid the passage, and, in a striking custom, with a dog to help them across the deepest river. Only after completing all nine levels did the soul reach Mictlan proper and dissolve into final repose. The conception is notable for what it lacks: the destination in the Aztec afterlife was determined chiefly by the manner of death rather than by moral conduct in life, so Mictlan is neither a punishment nor a reward but simply the common end of an ordinary death, a hard road to a quiet oblivion. Its imagery survives, transformed, in the modern Mexican Day of the Dead.

What determined a person's destination in Aztec cosmology was not conduct. It was the manner of death. Warriors who fell in battle and captives sacrificed accompanied the sun; women who died in childbirth were counted with them; those taken by water or lightning went to Tlalocan; and everyone else, which is nearly everyone, went to Mictlan. A good life did not qualify a person and a bad one did not disqualify them.

The journey took four years and passed nine levels, each with an obstacle: clashing mountains, a hill of obsidian blades, a wind carrying knives, a place where hearts are eaten. Grave goods were provisions for it. At the end the dead arrived before Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl and were finished, which is not a reward and not a punishment.

The first obstacle is a wide river, and the dead needed a dog to carry them over. Dogs were bred, kept and buried for the purpose, and dog burials associated with human ones are found archaeologically across the region. The Xoloitzcuintli, which is still a recognised breed, carries the name of the god Xolotl. It is a rare case where a doctrine about the afterlife produced an animal that is still alive.

The annual observances now known as the Day of the Dead descend in part from this material, by way of a long and much argued negotiation with the Catholic calendar. How much of the modern festival is pre-Columbian and how much is colonial and later is genuinely disputed among historians, and confident statements in either direction should be treated with caution.