Curanderismo Soul Retrieval: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom to Restore the Sacred Energy of the Soul - Erika Buenaflor M.A. J.D. 2019

The West for The Ancient Mexica
The West: The Space of Death and Releasing

The West is a space of death and releasing anything that may have prevented our soul pieces from returning to a loving, honoring, and safe space. This could encompass releasing bad habits, self-limiting beliefs and profiles, shadow aspects, negative thought patterns, attachment to victim identities or stories, and much more. Being in the underbelly of the West is a critical component for eventually entering the East, the space of new beginnings.

For the Mexica and Maya, the West was the space where the sun set and through which it traveled at night in the Underworld before emerging the next morning in the East. For the Mexica, the West was a space of descending, weakening, and aging, but at the same time it was a space of fecundity and life.¹ For the Maya, the West was the direction of the Underworld, and its corresponding color was black.² Whereas the South was typically associated with the path into the Underworld (and sometimes the Underworld itself), the West was the journey through the Underworld and the Underworld itself. While these spaces had their own wisdom and energy, oftentimes what they embodied could and did intersect and conflate with one another.

The journey through the Underworld could be a treacherous one, and there were deities that would guide the sun and others through the Underworld to their resurrection. The sun and Venus were often associated with passing through the Underworld, and were depicted with the characteristics of death during this passage.³ The journey into and out of the Underworld often required divine aid, as well as releasing greed and arrogance.

The West for The Ancient Mexica

Death and Sustenance

As the space of life and abundance, the West was associated with femininity, cultivated fields, the house of corn, sustenance, and the space of Tamoanchan, the place of origin, the supreme heaven, the place of duality.⁴ It was also associated with Toci—grandmother of the Earth mother deity complex, all things that were old and aging, white, death, the hummingbird, the house of the sun, and terrestrial goddesses.⁵ The West was where the sun went into the land of the night and dead, the region called Cihuatlampa, the place of women. Cihuateteo, deified women who died in childbirth, also went here. They were known to be very fearsome. There were certain days associated with the West—One Deer, One Rain, One Monkey, and One Eagle—during which anyone encountering the cihuateteo, especially a child, would be struck with a fit of epilepsy.⁶ The West as Tonatiuh-Iaquian was the region where the sun died.⁷

The cihuateteo escorted the sun at its zenith at approximately noon to the West at sunset.⁸ Dogs were also known to guide the sun and the dead through the Underworld.⁹ In addition, under his guise as Tlalchitonatiuh, Xólotl, the deity associated with the setting sun and the Underworld, accompanied the sun through this region. According to Mexica belief, Xólotl is able to enter and exit the Underworld and consequently is able to guide the sun along its eastward journey through this space so that it may leave it and be reborn each morning. Emerging out of the West reflected a transformative interrelationship between the processes of decay, death, germination, fertility, renewal, and rebirth.¹⁰

The Thirteen-Year Bearer sign of the West was calli (house). These were believed to be dangerous years, when the sun would hide and would not help the land give fruit. The years were cloudy, rainy, and filled with mist.¹¹ The West presided over the five following tonalpohualli day signs: mazatl (deer), quiauitl (rain), ozomatli (monkey), calli (house), quauhtli (eagle).¹² One mazatl was a generally good sign, but could incite an inordinate amount of fear that could paralyze a person.¹³ One quiauitl was associated with sorcerers, shape-shifters, and shamans. One calli was an unfortunate sign that could breed vice and laziness.¹⁴ One ozomatli was a day where fortunate artisans were born, but the day itself was also dangerous, as it was another day the tzitzimime could descend onto Earth.¹⁵ The quauhtli (eagle) was a symbol of the sun and of the priests who would carry the human heart from sacrifices to the sun.¹⁶ Overall, the years and days the West presided over were challenging. The day signs accompanied by the number one were dangerous days when the tzitzimime could descend from the sky onto Earth to possess and harm people.¹⁷ In other instances, the coefficient number of the year and day sign, as well as the discipline of the person, could temper these more challenging spaces.

The West was also associated with the white Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, the god of wind, Venus, and wisdom.¹⁸ Quetzalcoatl, the White Tezcatlipoca, presided over the West. In his guise as a wind god, Ehacatl-Quetzalcoatl was a life-giving aspect of wind. He was the road sweeper of the Tlaloque rain gods, the wind that brings the rain clouds. He was believed to have created heaven and Earth and was associated with fertility, life, and water. As Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, he was also the planet Venus.¹⁹ It was Quetzalcoatl who went to the Underworld to retrieve the human bones of the last creation. The devious Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Underworld, agreed to give up the bones but required Quetzalcoatl to undergo tests, which he passed. Eventually Quetzalcoatl returned the bones to Tamoanchan, the place of origin, where Cihuacoatl, a mother deity, ground them into a flourlike meal and placed them into a special container. The gods then shed drops of their blood onto the bones to create the present race of humans.²⁰ Consequently, the Underworld was a place where, if tests were passed, new life and beginnings could be forged.