Nahui Ollin

Nahui Ollin is a 16th-century concept in Aztec/Mexica cosmology with a variety of meanings. Nahui translates to "four," and Ollin translates to "movement" or "motion." Ollin was primarily portrayed in Aztec codices as two interlaced lines, each portrayed with two central ends. Nahui Ollin has been used as an educational framework, particularly in social justice and ethnic studies institutions.

The concept is also described as alluding to the four preceding suns or ages in history. Nahui Ollin has been described as the fifth sun over our current world and as "the sun (Tōnatiuh) in its four movements." When the fourth sun ended, Nahui Ollin emerged "from the remnant matter of an earlier age of humanity." It is believed that Quetzalcoatl traveled to Mictlān (the underworld or the land of the dead) to gather bones from the previous age and initiate a process of rebirthing humanity after its previous catastrophic end. According to sources describing Aztec belief, the fifth world will be destroyed through a series of catastrophic earthquakes or one large earthquake that will lead to a period of famine and darkness.

Nahui Ollin is also described as referring to the four directions, although not being limited to these directions in a static or rigid way. Scholar Gabriel S. Estrada states that "as cosmic movement, ollin is all movements at once that are both orderly and chaotic. Paradoxically, it defies human understanding even as it motivates all human movement."