Chicomoztoc

Somewhere in the dry country to the north, past the last maize fields and into the land of thorn and mesquite, there is a hill with a crooked top. Its rock is the colour of old hide. Inside it are seven caves, cool and dark and smelling of dust, and in each cave a people is waiting.

This is Chicomoztoc, the Place of the Seven Caves, and for the nations of central Mexico it was the answer to the oldest question a people can ask about itself. The Mexica said they came out of it. So did the Tepaneca of Azcapotzalco, the Acolhua of Texcoco, the Chalca, the Xochimilca, the Tlahuica and the Tlaxcalteca. One common telling gives each of them a cave of its own. They did not all leave together. They came out in turn, over generations, and walked south toward the lakes, and the order of leaving mattered a great deal later on, when the question of who had arrived first became a question about land. The Mexica came out last. By the time they reached the Valley of Mexico every good shore was taken, which is how they ended up on a swampy island with a cactus on it.

The fullest picture of the place comes from Cuauhtinchan, a town in what is now the state of Puebla. Around 1550 a noble house there had its history written down in Nahuatl and painted, in the book now called the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca. One page is given over entirely to the cave. The hill is drawn in section, like a body opened up. Its rim is shaggy, more skin than stone. At the top a spotted peak curls over like a hook, the sign for Colhuacan, the place of those who have ancestors. Within, the hollow spreads into seven rounded lobes, and each lobe is packed with small seated figures wearing animal skins and holding bows. Cactus and desert scrub stand on the slopes outside.

The image has been compared to a womb, and the comparison is hard to resist. Peoples come out of it as children do, one after another, each already itself. It has been compared, too, to the seven openings of the human head. The painters left no explanation. They simply drew a mountain that gives birth.

The same book tells what happened at the mouth of the cave. Two Toltec lords, Icxicoatl and Quetzaltehueyac, had been driven to the edge of ruin in their city of Cholula by the people who ruled there. They needed fighters. So they walked north for many days to the crooked hill, and one of them struck the rock with his staff and broke it open. The Chichimecs inside spoke a language the Toltecs could not follow, and an interpreter had to be found before anyone could say what was wanted. Then they came out, lean men used to hunting, blinking in the hard white light. Their leaders fasted for four days in the branches of mesquite trees. Their noses were pierced with bone from the eagle and the jaguar, which made lords of them, and they went south to win the Toltecs’ war. Cuauhtinchan was their reward.

That is the place doing what it exists to do. On an ordinary day in the story it does nothing at all. The hill stands in the heat, wind moves the thorn bushes, and inside, in the dark, seven peoples sit shoulder to shoulder and wait to be called.

The friars who collected these histories after the conquest heard more than one account of who lived there before the leaving. Motolinía was told of an old man, Iztac Mixcoatl, and his wife Ilancueitl, who dwelt at the Seven Caves and had six sons, among them Xelhua the builder and Tenoch, and that from those sons the nations descended. Sahagún’s Nahua informants described the caves as a shrine the wandering peoples visited to make their offerings. They were careful on that point, and denied that anyone was born from the rock. The traditions never settled it. Nor did they settle how Chicomoztoc stood to Aztlán, the island homeland of the Mexica. Some accounts make them one place, some make the caves a stop on the road from Aztlán, and Diego Durán, writing around 1580, runs them together with a third name, Teoculhuacan.

Durán also preserves the tale of an attempt to go back. The first Motecuhzoma, rich with conquest, sent sixty sorcerers north with gifts for the ancestors. They changed into animals to make the crossing. At the old hill they found Coatlicue, mother of Huitzilopochtli, still alive and still grieving for the son who had left, and they found that the slope turned to soft sand under their feet. The people of the place walked up it easily and grew young as they climbed. The envoys sank to their knees. An old man told them plainly that rich food and fine cloth had made them heavy.

Nobody has found it. Since the eighteenth century the ruined hill town of La Quemada in Zacatecas has been put forward, and so has a peak called Culiacán in Guanajuato. Under the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan there is a tunnel ending in a cluster of lobed chambers, and it has been argued that the idea was already old when that pyramid was raised. It reaches beyond the Nahuas as well. The K’iche’ Maya, far to the south, named their own place of origin Seven Caves, Seven Canyons.

What Chicomoztoc grants is a beginning, and with it a claim. A lineage that could point to its cave could point to its rights. Its limit is that it opens one way. Peoples come out. The only ones who go back are messengers, and the hill itself tells them how far they have fallen from what they were.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Chicomoztoc?

Chicomoztoc is the legendary place of origin of the Nahua peoples of central Mexico, including the Mexica, who are often called the Aztecs. The name means “at the seven caves” in Nahuatl. In the migration histories it is a hill containing seven caves, from which the different peoples emerged before travelling south.

Which peoples came out of Chicomoztoc?

One common telling names seven Nahua peoples who came out of Chicomoztoc: the Xochimilca, Chalca, Tepaneca, Acolhua, Tlahuica, Tlaxcalteca and Mexica. The Mexica left last. The Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, a history from Cuauhtinchan, tells instead of Chichimec warriors called out of the caves by two Toltec lords.

Are Chicomoztoc and Aztlán the same place?

The traditions do not agree on whether Chicomoztoc and Aztlán are the same place. Some accounts treat them as one homeland, and others make Chicomoztoc a stop on the Mexica journey from Aztlán. The chronicler Diego Durán, writing around 1580, runs both together with a third name, Teoculhuacan.

What does Chicomoztoc look like?

The best-known image of Chicomoztoc is a page in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, painted around 1550. It shows a hill cut open to reveal a chamber with seven rounded lobes, shaped like a flower, with skin-clad figures in each lobe. A curled peak at the top stands for Colhuacan, and cactus grows on the slopes.

Where was Chicomoztoc located?

Nobody has found Chicomoztoc, and the histories place it only in the dry lands north of the Valley of Mexico. La Quemada in Zacatecas and a peak called Culiacán in Guanajuato have both been suggested. A tunnel with lobed chambers under the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan has also been linked to the idea.

Related Entries

Aztlán, Huitzilopochtli, Cōātlīcue, Mixcoatl, Xelhua, Tlalocan, Mictlan