In the belief of the Mexicans the earth was not destined to receive its present inhabitants, although occupied by man-like beings, until it had undergone a series of cataclysms or partial destructions, regarding the precise incidence and even the number of which there is a marked difference of opinion on the part of the older authorities.
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus states that “in the first age” (or “Sun,” as these periods were called by the Nahua of Mexico) “water reigned until at last it destroyed the world… This age, according to their computation, lasted 4,008 years, and on the occurrence of that great deluge they sat that men were changed into fish, named Tlaemiehin, which signifies men-fish.” The second age, he tells us, lasted for 4,010 years and the world was ended by the force of violent winds, the catastrophe concluding by the transformation of men into apes. The third age endured for 4,801 years and ended in a universal fire, and in the fourth, which occupied 5,042 years, the human race, which had never ceased to transmit a few survivors from one of these epochs to the next, was almost destroyed by famine.
In his Historia Chichimeca Ixtilxochitl calls the first of these epoch Atonatiuh (Water Sun), in which all men perished by a great inundation. The second epoch, Tlachitonatiuh (Earth Sun), ended with violent earthquakes. In this age lived gigantic beings called Quinames. The third epoch was Ecatonatiuh, or “Sun of Wind,” in which edifices, tree, and men were nearly all destroyed by hurricanes, those who remained being changed into creatures of an intelligence so low as to be almost indistinguishable from monkeys. The Texcucan chronicler does not furnish us with the name of the present age in his Historia, nor in his Relaciones, where, however, we receive fuller information regarding the first three epochs, which he succeeds in carelessly transposing, giving the third the second place.
Camargo would almost appear to have been indebted to Ixtilxochitl for his version of the creation myth, but he seems to have been under the impression that only two of the epochs were ended. That three past cataclysms had taken place and that four ages in all had occurred is, indeed, the most generally favoured version of the story, but some authorities seem to have been of the opinion that a myth was current among the Mexican people which stated that no less than five epochs had taken place in the history of the world. Gama, Gomara, and Humboldt share this view, and Mendicta is of opinion that five “suns” existed before the present era, all of which were of such noxious character that the inhabitants of the earth languished and perished through their baneful influence.
But we have more stable authority for the sequence of these “suns” or epochs. It is probable that this cataclysmic theory was in vogue among the Nahua for generations before it received a more or less definite form, and, indeed, Veytia and Ixtlilxochitl state that the number of suns was agreed upon at a meeting of native astronomers within traditional memory. We are probably following the official version of the myth if we accept that to which the so-called calendar-stone of Mexico gives sculptured form and which may be interpreted as follows: While the world was still wrapped in primeval gloom, the god Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into the sun. This epoch, which was known as Naui Ocelotl or “Four Jaguar,” ended in the destruction of humanity and the race of giants, who then inhabited the earth, by fierce jaguars. Quetzalcoatl became the second sun, and the age of Naui Ecatl or “Four Wind” ended in violent hurricanes, during which men were transformed into monkeys. Tlaloc then took upon himself the task of providing the world with light, and his epoch of Naui Quiauitl or “Four Rain” came to an end by means of a deluge of fire. The goddess Chalchihuitlicue represented the sun of the age Naui Atil, “Four Water,” at the end of which there descended a deluge in which men were changed into fishes. Later there appeared the present sun, Naui Olin, which, it was believed, would end in earthquakes.
Source:
The Gods of Mexico, Lewis Spence, 1923
Kotharian Lightning 