A philosophy grounded not in a transcendent divinity, afterlife, or individualism, but in a rooted communal life. Western philosophers have long claimed that God, if such a being exists, is a personal force capable of reason, and that the path to a good human life is also the path to a happy one. But what if these claims prove false, or at least deeply misleading? The Aztecs of central Mexico had a rich philosophical tradition, recorded in Latin script by Spanish clergymen and passed down for centuries in the native Nahuatl language—one of the earliest transcripts being the Huehuetlatolli, or Discourses of the Elders, compiled by Friar Andrés de Olmos circa 1535. Novel in its form, the Discourses consists of short conversations between elders and young people on how to achieve a meaningful and morally sound life. The Aztecs had a metaphysical tradition but no concept of “being.” They considered the mind an embodied force, present not just in the brain but throughout the body. Their core values relied on collective responsibility and group wisdom, not individual thought and action, orienting life around one’s actions in this realm rather than an afterlife, distinctly opposed to the Christian beliefs that permeate Europe and America. Sebastian Purcell’s fluency in his grandmother’s native Nahuatl brings to light the Aztec ethical landscape in brilliant clarity. Never before translated into English in its entirety, and one of the earliest post-contact texts ever recorded, Discourses of the Elders reflects the wisdom communicated by oral tradition and proves that philosophy can be active, communal, and grounded not in a “pursuit of happiness” but rather the pursuit of a meaningful life.

In Aztec Philosophy, James Maffie shows the Aztecs advanced a highly sophisticated and internally coherent systematic philosophy worthy of consideration alongside other philosophies from around the world. Bringing together the fields of comparative world philosophy and Mesoamerican studies, Maffie excavates the distinctly philosophical aspects of Aztec thought. Aztec Philosophy focuses on the ways Aztec metaphysics—the Aztecs’ understanding of the nature, structure and constitution of reality—underpinned Aztec thinking about wisdom, ethics, politics,\ and aesthetics, and served as a backdrop for Aztec religious practices as well as everyday activities such as weaving, farming, and warfare. Aztec metaphysicians conceived reality and cosmos as a grand, ongoing process of weaving—theirs was a world in motion. Drawing upon linguistic, ethnohistorical, archaeological, historical, and contemporary ethnographic evidence, Maffie argues that Aztec metaphysics maintained a processive, transformational, and non-hierarchical view of reality, time, and existence along with a pantheistic theology. Aztec Philosophy will be of great interest to Mesoamericanists, philosophers, religionists, folklorists, and Latin Americanists as well as students of indigenous philosophy, religion, and art of the Americas.

Long before Europeans came to America, the Aztecs created a unique culture based on myth and a love of language. Myths and poems were an important part of their culture, and a successful speech by a royal orator was pronounced "a great scattering of jades." A Scattering of Jades is an anthology of the best of Aztec literature, compiled by a noted anthropologist and a skilled translator of Nahuatl. It is a storehouse of myths, narratives, poems, and proverbs—as well as prayers and songs to the Aztec gods that provide insight into how these people's perception of the cosmos drove their military machine. Featuring a translation of the Mexicayotl—a work as important today for Mexico's concept of nationhood and ideology as it was at the time of the Conquest—these selections eloquently depict the everyday life of this ancient people and their unique worldview. A Scattering of Jades is an unsurpassed window on ancient Mesoamerican civilization and an essential companion for anyone studying Aztec history, religion, or culture.

This volume presents ancient Mexican myths and sacred hymns, lyric poetry, rituals, drama, and various forms of prose, accompanied by informed criticism and comment. The selections come from the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs of Oaxaca, the Tarascans of Michoacan, the Otomís of central Mexico, and others. They have come down to us from inscriptions on stone, the codices, and accounts written, after the coming of Europeans, of oral traditions. It is Miguel León-Portilla’s intention "to bring to contemporary readers an understanding of the marvelous world of symbolism which is the very substance of these early literatures." That he has succeeded is obvious to every reader.

In this first English-language translation of a significant corpus of Nahuatl poetry into English, Miguel León-Portilla was assisted in his rethinking, augmenting, and rewriting in English by Grace Lobanov. Biographies of fifteen composers of Nahuatl verse and analyses of their work are followed by their extant poems in Nahuatl and in English.

This epistemological study, which is based on ancient chronicles and stories, hymns and ritual discourses, epics and poetics, as well as contemporary ethnographic studies of Mesoamerica, has as its salient issues: gender fluidity, eroticism linked to religion, permeable corporeality, embodied thought and the amblings of oral thought

Laack’s study presents an innovative interpretation of Aztec religion and art of writing. She explores the Nahua sense of reality from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion and analyzes Indigenous semiotics and embodied meaning in Mesoamerican pictorial writing.