Huemac

In Aztec legendary tradition Huemac (fl. 11th C.?), also spelled Hueymac or Huehmac, is described as being the last king of the (equally legendary and semi-mythical) Toltec state before the fall of Tula/Tollan.

His name is traditionally translated as "Big Hand", but other scholars maintain the more succinct translation is "Big Gift". [See Andrews (2003), pp.601-602.]

All information about this figure stems from Aztec literature written centuries later. As with just about everything to do with the 'Toltecs', whom the Aztecs and other central Mesoamerican cultures of the Postclassic era held up as their valiant precursors whose legacy and authority they inherited, actual and discernible historical data is scant. A number of contemporary Mesoamerican studies question whether the Toltec existed as a coherent state or group at all, and likewise whether Huemac was an actual figure remains highly debatable.

After the fall of the Toltec capital Huemac traveled for some years with a diminishing band of followers, and then died in a cave at Chapultepec, now part of modern Mexico City. The date of his death, from various accounts and various attempts to correlate the accounts with the Gregorian calendar, range from the 1090s to the 1170s.

Notes

References

*cite book |author=Andrews, J. Richard |origyear=1975 |year=2003 |title=Introduction to Classical Nahuatl |edition=Revised Edition |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press

External links

* [http://www.ericrosenfield.com/huemac.html Huemac and the Legendary Fall of Tollan] a look at various accounts by Eric Rosenfield