Myths emphasize realities and events of the origins and foundations of the world, of humanity, of staple food, and of supernatural beings—of gods and cultural heroes.

In the case of Mesoamerican pre-Hispanic myths, the various primary written sources have often survived in fragmented form. As for present Mesoamerican peoples, most scholars count on ethnographic material collected by anthropologists in the twentieth century.

Mesoamerica shares a common cosmovision and therefore many similar myths with a diversity of cultures. The sources that describe the aboriginal cultures were written mostly in Spanish—and primarily about Central Mexico—in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; some were written in Nahuatl by the conquerors themselves, by friars who began to evangelize, or by converted indigenous peoples. Whereas a few complete texts remain—such as the creation of the sun and moon in Teotihuacan and the story of Quetzalcoatl—most of these...