What is the origin of the pinata?

Question

I need some help, What is origins of the pinata?

I have found that the Aztecs used them...but for what?

Answer 1

Pinata.. awww.. an ancient gift of the Priests to the Kings in ancient days 3500 BC ...Most were filled with figs and nuts.. It was always a guessing game to discover which Priest left the best pinata for the youngest Child of Royality. For all Pinatas were to be taken the night before the Feast Day and placed inside the temple one by one. One Royal Child may recieve over hundred pinatas..:)

Answer 2

The piñata is a brightly-coloured paper container filled with sweets and/or toys. It is generally suspended on a rope from a tree branch or ceiling and is used during celebrations. A succession of blindfolded, stick-wielding children try to break the piñata in order to collect the sweets (traditionally fruit, such as sugarcane) and/or toys inside of it. It has been used for hundreds of years to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas and Easter.

Given its special association with Mexico, the piñata probably derives from pre-Columbian Aztec ritual clay pots. One version of these were the rain-god clay pots which ritually represented a thunderstorm. The pots were decorated and included a face of the rain god Tlaloc. These pots were filled with water rather than candy or toys. Striking a pot represented thunder and the resulting outflow of water represented the downpour of rain. Another version was associated with the war god Huitzilopochtli and the cycle of the calendar. At the end of the year, and to herald the new year, a clay pot covered with feathers and filled with trinkets was raised on a pole to be struck with a stick or bat. With the adoption of Catholicism, these Aztec religious rituals were transformed. The piñata became both a secular ritual, typically employed for birthday celebrations, and also as described below, coopted into Catholic symbolism, and perhaps through the Church, introduced into Europe.

Answer 3

Given its special association with Mexico, the piñata probably derives from pre-Columbian Aztec ritual clay pots. One version of these were the rain-god clay pots [2] which ritually represented a thunderstorm. The pots were decorated and included a face of the rain god Tlaloc. These pots were filled with water rather than candy or toys. Striking a pot represented thunder and the resulting outflow of water represented the downpour of rain. Another version was associated with the war god Huitzilopochtli and the cycle of the calendar. At the end of the year, and to herald the new year, a clay pot covered with feathers and filled with trinkets was raised on a pole to be struck with a stick or bat. With the adoption of Catholicism, these Aztec religious rituals were transformed. The piñata became both a secular ritual, typically employed for birthday celebrations, and also as described below, coopted into Catholic symbolism, and perhaps through the Church, introduced into Europe.

Answer 4

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi%C3%B1ata