In Aztec mythology, what was the name of the first world (sun) destroyed by jaguars?
Answer
Nahui-Ocelotl
Answer
Nahui-Ocelotl
In Aztec mythology, what was the name of the first world destroyed by jaguars? The first world was Nahui-Ocelotl, the Age of Four-Jaguar.
Nahui-Ocelotl is a Nahuatl calendrical name: nahui means “four,” while ocelotl means “jaguar.” It identifies the first of the successive cosmic ages in the Aztec Five Suns tradition. Each age was associated with a day sign and ended through a catastrophe linked to that sign or its symbolic force.
During Nahui-Ocelotl, the inhabitants were described in later accounts as giants. The age ended when jaguars emerged and devoured them, destroying the first world. The next ages met different fates: Nahui-Ehécatl ended in destructive winds, Nahui-Quiahuitl in fiery rain, and Nahui-Atl in a great flood. The present age is Nahui-Ollin, the Fifth Sun, associated with movement.
The spelling appears in several forms, including Nahui-Ocelotl, Nahui Ocelotl, and Nāhui-Ocēlōtl, because Nahuatl names are transliterated with different punctuation and diacritics. “Four-Jaguar” is the useful English gloss. The answer is not Tezcatlipoca, even though that deity is linked to one of the earlier suns in some versions of the tradition.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026