Humanity has seen solar eclipses since humanity existed, but we have only learned how to forecast them since the scientific revolution.
Before that, cultures across the world had to watch as the sun vanished behind the moon in terrible silence, hoping for the light to renew itself. Although we have detailed reports from ancient China and Babylonia of eclipse occurrences, there has been little knowledge about what was observed by native American cultures.
A new study now sheds some light on what the mighty Aztecs were saying about the unusual and glorious solar eclipses.
Recently, as outlined in a paper in the preprint journal arXiv, we have also started to peer at their perception of solar eclipses, typically considered a major deal in societies worldwide, and how they perceived such momentous events.
Sure enough, throughout their history, the Aztecs took note of several major solar eclipses. As early as 1301 (before the Aztecs had formed their empire) until right around the time of the Spanish invasion in 1524, documents exist in the Codices.
We can only speculate as to what importance the Aztecs attached to eclipses. After all, you certainly would too if the sun unexpectedly vanished in the middle of the day and you didn't know why. Many societies around the world attributed tremendous significance to them.
But by and large, the Aztecs tended not to be the best or most cautious astronomers. Of course, they kept track of the seasons (essential for every agricultural civilization) and paid attention carefully to Venus' position. But they did not have a rather sophisticated calendar, did not keep track of the other planets and made no note of any efforts to describe or forecast planetary cycles in their writings.
As far as we can understand, the Aztecs assumed that solar eclipses had clearly occurred, spontaneously and unexpectedly, and it appears like the Aztecs felt differently about them every time they did.
A jaguar, a sign of night, is seen consuming the sun in one pictograph depicting an eclipse. The empire's people had to shout and scream to scare away the jaguar.
There's more, though. The Aztecs believed in certain evil beings or spirits called "Tzitzimime." The souls of slaughtered soldiers were portrayed by these skeletal animals. Two of these deities are seen alongside the black light in one pictograph of an eclipse. The fear was that the sun would be eaten by these demons of death and then come to Earth, bringing an end to the world as the Aztecs knew it.
The fact is, there is very little that we know about Aztec myths. In their past, they have reported well over two dozen solar eclipses, but each time they seem to view them differently. They did not, however, apply much historical importance to these astronomical events, unlike their European and Asian counterparts.
Nevertheless, the Aztecs, like all civilizations around the world, took great notice of solar eclipses, and cared enough about them to write about them, so that future generations would know what they were doing.
