Centzon Tōtōchtin
The Centzon Tōtōchtin (Nahuatl for "Four Hundred Rabbits") were a collective of pulque deities in Aztec religion.[1][2] They belonged to the wider complex of beliefs surrounding pulque (octli), the fermented sap of the maguey, and were associated with ritual intoxication.[2][3] In central Mexican iconography, rabbits were closely linked to pulque and to the goddess Mayahuel, placing the Centzon Tōtōchtin within the sacred symbolism of the maguey plant and its drink.[2]
Mythological role
[edit]Modern scholarship treats the Centzon Tōtōchtin as part of the Aztec pulque cult, in which a number of deities governed the preparation, ritual use, and consequences of pulque.[2] Taube notes that Ome Tochtli ("Two Rabbit") could serve as a generic name for the 400 pulque gods, showing that the group could be referred to collectively as well as through a single representative deity.[2] The rabbit day sign was associated with the south, and Taube argues that Aztec ritual art sometimes linked the Centzon Tōtōchtin to the Centzon Huitznahua, the "Four Hundred Southerners" defeated by Huitzilopochtli.[2]
In Aztec visual culture, pulque was closely associated with the moon and the night. Taube notes that pulque vessels and depictions of pulque gods often carry lunar signs, and that in the Codex Borbonicus Mayahuel presides over the trecena 1 Malinalli while a starry night sky surrounds a pulque pot.[2] García-Arce and Roberto Castro-Muñoz likewise observe that rabbits were a recurring sign in pulque imagery, appearing as naturalistic rabbits, rabbit-headed beings, and people in rabbit costumes.
Cult and symbolism
[edit]The Centzon Tōtōchtin belonged to a ritual tradition in which intoxication was controlled rather than casual. García-Arce and Castro-Muñoz summarize colonial and codical evidence showing that pulque drinking in pre-Hispanic central Mexico was restricted to specific groups, quantities, and ceremonial dates, and that drunkenness outside those settings could be punished. In that context, the "Four Hundred Rabbits" expressed the sacred and potentially dangerous dimensions of ritual drinking.[2]
Because the pulque gods were tied to night, warfare, sacrifice, and calendrical symbolism, Taube argues that the Centzon Tōtōchtin should be understood as part of a broader cosmological system rather than as a minor piece of folklore.[2] Their importance in modern scholarship lies in the way they connect agriculture, intoxicants, ritual art, and myth in central Mexican religion.[2]
References
[edit]- ↑ Wood, Stephanie (ed.). "centzontotochtin". Online Nahuatl Dictionary. Wired Humanities Projects, University of Oregon. Retrieved 2026-09-12.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Taube, Karl A. (2018) [1993]. "The Bilimek Pulque Vessel: Starlore, Calendrics, and Cosmology of Late Postclassic Central Mexico". Studies in Ancient Mesoamerican Art and Architecture: Selected Works by Karl Andreas Taube (PDF). San Francisco: Precolumbia Mesoweb Press. pp. 226–245. Retrieved 2026-09-12.
- ↑ García-Arce, Zahirid Patricia; Castro-Muñoz, Roberto (2021). "Exploring the potentialities of the Mexican fermented beverage: Pulque". Journal of Ethnic Foods. 8 (1) 35. doi:10.1186/s42779-021-00111-6. Retrieved 2026-09-12.
