AZ: (PG13) San Juan Teperico

[Craig Berry]

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Richard Haly wrote:

> > If you mean 'Tlalocan', that's more of an upper world -- a rich mountain,
> > well watered (needless to say), and thus fitting the name 'teperico'.  The
> > lower world (literally) is 'Mictlan'.
> >
> > Still wondering what the PG13 content was in this...?
>
> Talocan is the Sierra Norte de Puebla (a T-dialect pronounciation  of
> Tlalocan.

Ah, thank you.  I tend to think in Classical terms and hadn't considered
the source of your citation.

> It is a lowerworld because it is within the surface of the earth
> (Talticpac/tlalticpac). I am in no way convinced that Mictlan as represented
> in the Florentine Codex etc. is not a generic place for the dead including
> Ilhuicac. topan mictlan can be read "above us in the land of the dead" which
> may or may not be two different places

I have always read that as a classic difrassismo, 'above us, below us',
alluding to "all the other (not normal-earthly-existence) lands."

> - especially as the sky was certainly a place for the dead (warriors,
> women dead in childbirth, and Tzitzitzimeh)  just as Talocan also is a
> place where one meets up with ancestors. In the Sierra Norte de Puebla
> Talocan is very much like a combination of the elements associated with
> Mictlan and with Tlalocan (fertility). There is no confusion here since
> bones are fertile in Mesoamerica: omitl = bone(s)  omiceyotl (that which
> pertains to bones) = semen.

Interesting!  I hadn't encountered that word previously.

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