The formation of the earth did not by itself produce the ordered world. Earth and sky also had to be separated, supported, and given their proper places. Nahua sources preserve more than one account of how this occurred, and they do not place the event at precisely the same moment in cosmic history.
In one tradition, the raising of the heavens belongs to the first ordering of the body of Cipactli-Tlaltecuhtli. After the primordial earth-being had been divided into the regions of the world, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca entered its body at the center in the forms of great serpents. They intertwined and rose upward, forcing apart earth and sky and establishing a passage between them. Their joined form was understood as a great cosmic tree or pillar connecting the lower, middle, and upper portions of creation.
Another account places the raising of the sky much later, after the catastrophic flood that ended an earlier Sun. In that telling, the waters became so great that the heavens themselves collapsed upon the earth. When the flood subsided, the gods found the world without its former order and resolved to restore it.
Rather than treating these accounts as identical, the priestly traditions of the Fifth Sun preserve both. Some teachers understand them as descriptions of two separate events: the first raising of the heavens at creation and a later restoration after the destruction of the flooded world. Others regard them as different versions of the same ancient cosmological event, remembered and reorganized through generations of oral and painted tradition.
Both accounts agree on one important principle. The heavens are not simply empty space above the earth. Their separation from Tlalticpac is part of the structure that makes an inhabited world possible.
The restored sky could not remain unsupported.
According to the account preserved in the Historia de los mexicanos por sus pinturas, the four creator gods opened four paths through the center of the earth and created four beings to assist in raising the fallen heavens. These helpers were named Tzontemoc, Itzcoatl, Itzmali, and Tenexoch.
Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl then assumed the forms of enormous trees. Tezcatlipoca became the tezcacuahuitl, the mirror tree, while Quetzalcoatl became the quetzalhuexotl, a great willow associated with the Feathered Serpent. Together with the other gods and the four created helpers, they lifted the heavens and restored the stars to their places.
The image of the supported heavens belongs to a much broader Mesoamerican conception of the universe. The earthly world is divided into four directional regions, and the limits of those regions can be represented by trees, gods, pillars, or other supernatural bearers supporting the sky. At their meeting lies the center.
This arrangement is not merely geographical. The four directions possess their own colors, gods, calendrical associations, winds, and sacred meanings. Different manuscripts and traditions assign these associations somewhat differently, but the fourfold division itself remained fundamental.
The world could therefore be understood as both a landscape and an ordered sacred structure. East, west, north, and south were not interchangeable quarters drawn for the convenience of travelers. Each formed part of the organization of time, space, ritual, and divine influence.
At the center these regions met.
The image of the tree joining earth and sky appears repeatedly in Mesoamerican cosmology. Its roots belong to the earth and the regions beneath it, while its trunk passes through the inhabited world and its branches reach upward into the celestial realms. It provides an image through which otherwise separate portions of existence can be understood as parts of a single connected cosmos.
In some Nahua explanations, the intertwined forms of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca themselves establish this central support. The two gods, transformed into serpents, rise together through the body of the earth and create the vertical axis around which the ordered world is arranged.
The symbolism is particularly appropriate to the two gods. Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are frequently rivals, but they are also repeatedly required to act together. Neither represents a simple principle of good or evil. Their conflict produces change, while their cooperation makes creation possible.
The cosmic tree expresses the same relationship in physical form. Opposing powers do not cease to be different when they become joined. Their union creates stability precisely because both remain present.
This conception later appears in representations of sacred mountains, temples, trees, hearths, and ceremonial centers. A place positioned at the center could reproduce, on a smaller scale, the structure of the cosmos. The center of a settlement, the summit of a temple, or the interior of a sacred mountain might consequently possess significance beyond its physical location.
The world was not imagined as a collection of sealed realms placed beyond one another. Connections existed between them.
Once the earth and heavens had been separated, movement became possible between the divisions of the cosmos.
The Sun could cross the sky. Stars occupied their proper regions. Winds moved across Tlalticpac. Rain descended from above, while springs and rivers emerged from within the earth. Fire and smoke rose. The dead traveled away from the ordinary world of the living. Gods descended to Tlalticpac or manifested within it.
These movements help explain the religious importance of certain features of the landscape.
Mountains rise from the earthly surface toward the heavens while enclosing caves and waters within themselves. They were closely associated with rain, fertility, clouds, and the storage of water.
Caves open downward and inward. They could be regarded as places of origin, entrances into the earth, homes of supernatural beings, or routes toward regions ordinarily hidden from human sight.
Springs represent water emerging from within the body of the earth.
Great trees join the ground to the sky through their visible form and descend beneath the surface through their roots.
Temple pyramids reproduce the form of mountains and raise sacred precincts above the surrounding settlement. Their architecture gives physical expression to the relationship between the human world and the divine regions associated with the heavens.
None of these features automatically functions as a doorway through which anyone may pass. A cave remains a cave, and a mountain remains a mountain. Yet certain places possess sacred relationships that make movement between regions possible under particular circumstances. Ritual knowledge, divine favor, calendrical timing, offerings, or the intervention of supernatural beings may be required before an ordinary place becomes a path.
For this reason, the geography of Tlalticpac cannot be understood entirely from its visible surface. A road may connect two cities, but a cave may connect two portions of the cosmos. A mountain may belong to a kingdom while also serving as the dwelling place of rain powers. A temple may occupy only a few hundred paces of ground while reproducing in miniature the structure of the heavens, earth, and underworld.
The raising of the sky therefore established more than the space above the earth. It created the ordered distances and connections through which the cosmos could function.
Only after earth and heaven had been given their places could the movements of the Suns, the succession of days, and the histories of the worlds unfold.