The Nahua and the Aztec are not the same people, although they do share the Nahuatl language and an origin myth.
Although they both inhabited the same region, the Aztec civilization became established roughly 125 years after the Nahua civilization fell.
Both civilizations were known for their military prowess..
In the Aztec creation story, the four gods first create water, other gods, and a sea monster called Cipactli.
As they continue to create things, though, Cipactli eats all their work.
So the gods kill Cipactli, and from her body create the world..
In creation myths, the term "Five Suns" refers to the belief of certain Nahua cultures and Aztec peoples that the world has gone through five distinct cycles of creation and destruction, with the current era being the fifth..
The cosmos is teotl's self-transformation or self-transmutation — not its creation ex nihilo.
The Nahuas understood this process in two closely interrelated ways.
First, they conceived it artistically.
Teotl is a sacred artist who endlessly fashions and refashions it- self into and as the cosmos..
According to Aztec worldview, the universe consisted of three layers.
The middle layer was the earthly one, inhabited by humans.
Above that world, the Aztecs imaged thirteen levels or heavens, Omeyocan, the “place of duality,” being the uppermost.
Below the earthly layer, there were the nine levels of the underworld..
The last of the southern Nahua populations today are the Pipil of El Salvador.
Nahua populations in Mexico are centered in the middle of the country, with most speakers in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero and San Luis Potosí.
Before the exterior of a mountain-god display could be fashioned, Nahua artisans first crafted little dough figures called “children,” which represented the dead and afflicted.
First, they would craft “skeletons” (in Nahuatl imomoio, “their bones”) for individual figures.
For the modern Nahuatl-speakers, this includes ,Mexicano, Mexicanero, Tepoztecan, Huasteca Nahua, Nahuatl, and Aztec.
The Nahua are Native Americans who trace their ethnic origin and identity to the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs.
The Nahuas ( / ˈnɑːwɑːz / ) are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador.
