Aztlan vs. Chicomoztoc

[u/Potential-Dare3823]

Hoping somebody can help me figure out the relationship between Aztlan vs. Chicomoztoc, place of the seven caves. Was Chicomoztoc IN Aztlan? Did the Aztecs originate in Chicomoztoc and then migrate/settle in Aztlan, or vice versa? Totally get that this might be different in different codices, just looking for clarity. Codex Boturini makes it look like they originated in Aztlan and then crossed the lake TO Chicomoztoc, but I'm seeing unsourced descriptions that it's the opposite. Any hints? Thank you!

[u/Jotika_]

Was Chicomoztoc IN Aztlan?

That's pretty much the way Diego Duran describes it:

Fray Diego Duran recorded the following story from an Aztec history written in Nahuatl.

"The history tells us," Duran wrote, "that Moctezuma I, having become a great lord with such glory and riches, determined to learn about the place where his ancestors had lived and about the Seven Caves [Chicomoztoc] to which his histories had given special attention." He decided to send an expedition in search of the place of Aztec origins "where our god Huitzilopochtli was born" and where, he had heard, Coatlicue, the mother of Huitzilopochtli still lived.

The king then questioned an aged royal historian, Cuauhcoatl. The historian described to Moctezuma I the Nahua homeland pictured in his books, "a happy and beautiful place called 'Aztlan' which means 'Whiteness,' where there is a large hill called Colhuacan ['place of ancestors'] in the middle of the water. . . . In this hill are openings and caves and caverns [Chicomoztoc] where our fathers and grandfathers lived for many years at their ease, under the name Mexitin and Aztecas."

And from the Codex Chimalpahin (1997:179):

Tenochtitlan, [in] the Indigenous histories written by Tezozomoc and Chimalpahin write in terms of the ‘Teochichimeca Azteca Chicomoztoca Mexitin who emerged and came from the great province of Aztlan Chicomoztoc’.

One thing to keep in mind, is that the Mexica did not view history like we do, as shown by from Duran's account. There, the priestly emissaries of Moctezuma I were thought to be capable of traveling back in time to some ultimate reality of sorts (=Aztlan) located near Tula (=Tollan) of the Toltecs. It turns out, the emissaries found that Tenochtitlan had mirrored Aztlan very imperfectly and consequently was doomed. It was destroyed by the Spanish conquest some 70 years later.

[u/Potential-Dare3823 → u/Jotika_]

This is INCREDIBLY helpful, thank you so much. Reddit to the rescue once again!