Mesoamerican cosmovision or cosmology is the collection of worldviews shared by the Indigenous pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica. The cosmovision of these societies was reflected in the ways in which they were organized, such as in their built environment and social hierarchies, as well as in their epistemologies and ontologies, including an understanding of their place within the cosmos or universe. Elements of Mesoamerican cosmovision are reflected in pre-Columbian textual sources, such as the Popol Vuh and the Cuauhtinchan maps, the archeological record, as well as in the contemporary beliefs, values, and practices of Indigenous people, such as the Maya, Nahua, and Purépecha, as well as their descendants. It has been argued that the Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) ceremony exists as a legacy of Mesoamerican cosmovision.
Themes
Duality The Mesoamerican understanding of the universe was guided by parallelisms, or dualities. In the Mesoamerican universe, everything formed a part of a pair. One of the most fundamental dualities was that of "macrocosmos", or the divine powers in the universe, and "microcosmos" or life on earth. Mesoamerican cosmovision linked space and time in a way that provided necessary structure to life.
Worldmaking, worldcentering, worldrenewing The Mesoamerican world was made or structured to reflect their cosmovision. Societies were organized around huge, urban ceremonial centers, which were in turn constructed to reflect the cosmos through architecture, placement with relation to celestial bodies, and artwork. Mesoamericans, who viewed their landscape in terms of cardinal directions, saw these urban centers as axis mundi, places where divine power reaches the earth, and is diffused from there. These centers held ritual events that gave people access to “making” or generating a world that aligned with cosmovision. Its rulers and ancestors centered the Mesoamerican world. Ancestor worship, deification of rulers, and reverence for royal lineages were the foci in societies throughout Mesoamerica. Worldrenewing or rejuvenation was achieved through a variety of ritual practices, ceremonial sacrifice, and adherence to calendar systems. "Critical cosmovision can be summarised as a fusing of the cultural consciousness that continues ancestral knowledge and its practices, and a political consciousness that identifies and confronts systems of power..." Which integrates different perspective based on the indigenous people creating a sort of mentality that deeply rooted back to their roots which promised them success.
Evidence
Textual primary sources
Cosmovision is described extensively in the Popol Vuh, an ancient Mayan book, which describes the Mayan belief system concerning the creation of the world, the deities and their roles within the cosmos, as well as the importance of rulers. The survival of this text through translation, first as a hieroglyphic text and later as an alphabetic text, indicates that this book was paramount in preserving Mayan culture, which was inextricably linked to Mayan cosmovision. Throughout the Popol Vuh, the themes common to Mesoamerican cosmovision such as the concept of axis mundi, ritual sacrifice and ceremony, and duality and parallelism, are repeatedly presented. Cosmovision is depicted in the hero stories of Hunahpu and Xbalanque, One Hunahpu, and Seven Hunahpu, as well as the story concerning the conception of humans in the Popol Vuh.
Archaeological record The importance of cosmovision as a long lasting and unifying theme in Mesoamerican culture is also evident throughout the archaeological record. According to Gordon Willey's theory concerning settlement patterns, excavated sites (considered primary sources) provide evidence for religious organization (Willey, 205). If one considers the major urban centers throughout Mesoamerica, such as Copan, Tikal, Teotihuacan, and Tenochtitlan to name a few, it is possible to discern very obvious, shared characteristics. These distinctive attributes include things such as architecture and celestial alignment that reflect Mesoamerican cosmovision. This is apparent in the building of massive pyramid sites, which represented the axis mundi in societies. They were places that embodied worldmaking, representing the creation beliefs, visually paralleling notions of the way in which the cosmos was organized. These urban sites also centered the Mesoamerican world by providing places where rulers could give people in society physical, and ultimately spiritual, access to their cosmovision. Finally, these urban centers provided a place for worldrenewal, where ritual ceremony and sacrifice took place.
Post-conquest sources A final example, the 16th century Mapa de Cuauhtinchan, illustrates how powerful and enduring the Mesoamerican cosmovision was. According to Elizabeth Boone's interpretation of the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan, cosmovision influenced the culture of Mesoamericans so heavily during the Colonial Period that they used their origin story as justification to claim native lands. Ancestor worship is a common theme in Mesoamerican cosmovision. The northern, Nahuatl-speaking people all shared a common origin story, which is depicted in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan. This map serves not only to center the Mesoamerican world through the stories of its ancestors and rulers, but also depicts urban centers, which reflect worldmaking. Finally, the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan also reveals ceremonial rituals, an essential component of worldrenewing. All of these themes are clearly important to native Mesoamericans right up through the Colonial Period.
Effects of Spanish colonization
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