Page 106 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

were converted into birds to survive the catastrophe.’ The Fourth Sun is
represented by the head of the water-goddess Chalchiuhtlicue:
‘Destruction came in the form of torrential rains and floods. The
mountains disappeared and men were transformed into fish.’
10
The symbol of the Fifth Sun, our current epoch, is the face of Tonatiuh,
the sun god himself. His tongue, fittingly depicted as an obsidian knife,
juts out hungrily, signalling his need for the nourishment of human blood
and hearts. His features are wrinkled to indicate his advanced age and he
appears within the symbol Ollin which signifies Movement.
11
Why is the Fifth Sun known as ‘The Sun of Movement’? Because, ‘the
elders say: in it there will be a movement of the earth and from this we
shall all perish.’
12
And when will this catastrophe strike? Soon, according to the Aztec
priests. They believed that the Fifth Sun was already very old and
approaching the end of its cycle (hence the wrinkles on the face of
Tonatiuh). Ancient meso-American traditions dated the birth of this epoch
to a remote period corresponding to the fourth millennium BC of the
Christian calendar. The method of calculating its end, however, had
13
been forgotten by the time of Aztecs. In the absence of this essential
14
information, human sacrifices were apparently carried out in the hope
that the impending catastrophe might be postponed. Indeed, the Aztecs
came to regard themselves as a chosen people; they were convinced that
they had been charged with a divine mission to wage war and offer the
blood of their captives to feed Tonatiuh, thereby preserving the life of the
Fifth Sun.
15
Stuart Fiedel, an authority on the prehistory of the Americas, summed
up the whole issue in these words: ‘The Aztecs believed that to prevent
the destruction of the universe, which had already occurred four times in
the past, the gods must be supplied with a steady diet of human hearts
and blood.’ This same belief, with remarkably few variations, was shared
16
by all the great civilizations of Central America. Unlike the Aztecs,
however, some of the earlier peoples had calculated exactly when a great
movement of the earth could be expected to bring the Fifth Sun to an
end.

Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion, University of Oklahoma Press, 1990, p.
10
332. See also Aztec Calendar: History and Symbolism, Garcia y Valades Editores, Mexico
City, 1992.
11 Ibid.
12 Pre-Hispanic Gods of Mexico, p. 24.
13 Peter Tompkins, Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, Thames & Hudson, London, 1987,
p. 286.
14 John Bierhorst, The Mythology of Mexico and Central America, William Morrow & Co.,
New York, 1990, p. 134.
World Mythology, (ed. Roy Willis, BCA, London, 1993, p. 243.
15
16 Stuart J. Fiedel, The Prehistory of the Americas, (second edition), Cambridge University
Press, 1992, pp. 312-13.

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