Mesoamerican mythology is the collection of myths, legends, and religious beliefs of the various cultures that lived in the Mesoamerican region. 

This region includes modern-day Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America.

 

The mythology of the different cultures in this region have many similarities, but each culture also has its own unique pantheon of gods and goddesses, as well as its own creation myths and stories about the gods.

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A vast majority of Mesoamerican mythology revolve around the Mayan and Aztec cultures which are themselves heavily influenced by ancient Olmec mythology.

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The religion of the Olmec people significantly influenced the mythological world view of Mesoamerica. Echoes of Olmec mythology can be seen in the mythologies of nearly all later pre-Columbian era cultures.

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The first Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs, developed on present-day Mexico in the southern Gulf Coast in the centuries before 1200 BC and lasted until roughly 400 BC.  The Olmec culture is often considered a "mother culture" to later Mesoamerican cultures.

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There is no surviving direct account of the Olmec's religious beliefs, unlike the Mayan Popol Vuh, or the Aztecs codices and conquistador accounts.

 

Archaeologists, therefore, have had to rely on other techniques to reconstruct Olmec beliefs such as: typological analysis of Olmec iconography and art, comparison to later, better documented pre-Columbian cultures and comparison to modern-day cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

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Mayan or Maya mythology comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. The legends of the era have to be reconstructed from iconography due to the lack of written history from this period. 

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In the Mayan narrative, the origin of many natural and cultural phenomena is set out, often with the moral aim of defining the ritual relationship between humankind and its environment.

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Aztec mythology is the body or collection of myths of the Aztec civilization of Central Mexico.The Aztecs were Nahuatl-speaking groups living in central Mexico and much of their mythology is similar to that of other Mesoamerican cultures.

 

According to legend, the various groups who became the Aztecs arrived from the North into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec.

 

There are different accounts of their origin. In the myth, the ancestors of the Mexica/Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlan, the last of seven nahuatlacas (Nahuatl-speaking tribes, from tlaca, "man") to make the journey southward, hence their name "Azteca." Other accounts cite their origin in Chicomoztoc, "the place of the seven caves", or at Tamoanchan (the legendary origin of all civilizations).

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The Mexica/Aztec were said to be guided by their patron war-god Huitzilopochtli, meaning "Left-handed Hummingbird" or "Hummingbird from the South." At an island in Lake Texcoco, they saw an eagle, perched on a nopal cactus, holding a rattlesnake in its talons. This vision fulfilled a prophecy telling them that they should found their new home on that spot. The Aztecs built their city of Tenochtitlan on that site, building a great artificial island, which today is in the center of Mexico City. This legendary vision is pictured on the Coat of Arms of Mexico.

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