Diego Durán’s account of Aztec funerary destinations

Record summary

Diego Durán’s Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de Tierra Firme describes Mexica history, festivals, deities, sacrifice, temples, and funerary ideas, including different postmortem destinations associated with manner of death. The material can be compared with Nahua accounts of Mictlan, solar realms, and water-associated afterlives, while also showing how colonial writers systematized Indigenous categories. Durán worked with Indigenous informants and manuscripts but wrote within a Christian anti-idolatry framework. His chronology, terminology, and dependence on earlier traditions require careful comparison with Nahuatl sources.