This is a 16th- century depiction of a Central-American ruler called Nezahualcoyotl (d. 1472). Before the Aztec Empire took over the region, the area was partitioned among several kingdoms. Nezahualcoyotl ruled over the city-state of Texcoco, and was famed not only for his political leadership, but also his architectural genius and his poetry. Unusually, several of his texts survived the widespread destruction of indigenous manuscripts after the Spanish Conquest.
Among them is a poem about death which shows the interior mental process of a man facing the knowledge of his inescapable demise. “Where shall we go where death does not exist? But should I live weeping because of this? May your heart find its way: here no one will live forever. Even the princes die, people are reduced to ashes. May your heart find its way: here no one will live forever.”. We can assume Nezahuacoyotl was an independent thinker — his musings didn’t fall in line with traditional Central American thoughts on mortality, which emphasized a paradisical afterlife for warriors.
Incidentally, the Spanish friars who documented Nezahualcoyotl’s life state that the king differed in other ways from Central American leaders of his era. Namely, Nezhualcoyotl was said to have used insense and fasting rather than conducting human sacrifice in his worship.
Source(s): Image wikipedia codes Ixlikxichitl. Translation Miguel Leon-Portilla and Grace Lobanov, @vianegativa.us/2015/06/where-shall-wego-can-nelpa-tonyazque-by-nezahualcoyotl .
