Coxcox
{{Short description|Character of Aztec mythology}}
In Aztec mythology, Coxcox was the only male survivor of a worldwide flood, which was the fourth destruction of the world in Aztec myth.{{cite book| last=Hale | first=Susan | date=1891 | title=Mexico | series=The Story of the Nations | volume=27 | publication-place=London | publisher=T. Fisher Unwin | pages=22–23}}{{Cite book |last=Humboldt |first=Alexander von |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G7Pt35axXEkC&dq=Aztec+coxcox+flood&pg=PA260 |title=Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: A Critical Edition |date=2013-01-25 |orig-date=First published (in French) 1810 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-86509-6 |language=en}}{{unreliable source?|date=August 2024}}
The Aztecs believed that only Coxcox and his wife, Xochiquetzal, survived the flood. They took refuge in the hollow trunk of a cypress -or, in some versions, a small boat - which floated on top of the water and finally banked on a mountain in Culhuacan.{{unreliable source?|date=August 2024}}
They had many children, but all of them were mute. The great spirit took pity on them, and sent a dove, which attempted to teach the children how to speak. Fifteen of them succeeded, and from these, the Aztecs believed, the Toltecs and Aztecs were descended.{{unreliable source?|date=August 2024}}
Another account
In another account, the Nahua god Tezcatlipoca spoke to a man named Nata and his wife Nana, saying: "Do not busy yourselves any longer making pulque, but hollow out for yourselves a large boat of an ahuehuete (cypress) tree, and make your home in it when you see the waters rising to the sky."{{unreliable source?|date=August 2024}}
When flood waters came, the Earth disappeared and the highest mountain tops were covered in water. All other men perished, being transformed into fish.{{unreliable source?|date=August 2024}}
The legend in art
Ancient Aztec paintings often depict the boat floating on the flood waters beside a mountain. The heads of a man and a woman are shown in the air above the boat and a dove is also depicted. In its mouth the dove is carrying a hieroglyphic symbol representing the languages of the world, which it is distributing to the children of Coxcox.{{Citation needed|date=June 2007}}
References
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Category:Aztec mythology and religion
Category:Legendary progenitors
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