Mesoamerican PantheonRealm
Tamoanchan
The Aztec paradise where the gods created humanity from the bones retrieved from Mictlan. A place of flowering trees and eternal spring, Tamoanchan represents the original state of creation before the current world age.
About Tamoanchan
Flowering origin, dangerous tree
Tamoanchan is a paradisal origin-place in central Mexican lore: flowering trees, gods, and in some accounts the making of humans from bones brought out of Mictlan. Sahagun and the Codex Telleriano-Remensis treat it as a place of splendor from which beings fall or are expelled after a forbidden tree is cut or a flower is torn. It is not the Christian Eden with a serial number. Cult evidence is thin compared with Tenochtitlan's temples; the name is more painted and sung than excavated.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Florentine Codex (Sahagun) / Codex Telleriano-Remensis tradition
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
Keep exploring
One myth a week, with its sources in a short email. The sign-up form is just below.