Mictlantecuhtli (Lord of Mictlan) God of death and the underworld (Mictlan, or “place of the dead”), he is identified with gloom and darkness. He is frequently represented as a skeleton with bloody spots. He is married to Mictlancihuatl. Quetzalcoatl fought with Mictlantecuhtli to retrieve the bones of human beings of the previous era and create them again in the present era, the fifth sun. This battle symbolized the constant interaction and duality between life and death. Read Full Story
Mayahuel (Goddess of Maguey) As the maguey deity, she is associated with pulque. Mayahuel isdepicted sometimes with attributes of the water goddess, including fertility and fecundity. She is most often represented as emerging from a flowering maguey plant. According to a myth, she was killed by the tzitzimime, and when Quetzalcoatl buried her bones, the first maguey sprouted. In other accounts, she is mentioned as “the woman of four hundred breasts,” probably a reference to the sweet milky ag... Read Full Story
Macuilxochitl (Five Flower) He is the principal god of the Ahuiateteo and the patron god of the palace folk as well as of games and gambling, especially the patolli game. In addition, Macuilxochitl is the deity of the flowers and excessive pleasures. He punishes people by inflicting hemorrhoids and diseases of the genitals. He is closely associated and often overlapping with Xochipilli, the Flower Prince. Read Full Story
Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli (Curl Obsidian Knife) He is the deity of castigation, blindness, and stoning and also the god of frost, snow, and coldness. Read Full Story
Itzpapalotl (Obsidian Butterfly) Earth goddess of war and sacrifice by obsidian knife, she is identified with the bat and the tzitzimime (star “demons” that devoured people during the solar eclipses). Itzpapalotl is a fearsome deity. Read Full Story
(Cihuacoatl, Citlalicue, Quilaztli;Aged Woman) Goddess of Earth, death, and the Milky Way, Ilamatecuhtli wears a skirt with dangling shells known as a star skirt and is depicted with a fleshless mouth. She was worshipped in a temple called Tlillan (darkness). Her festival was Tititl, during which a female slave who impersonated her was sacrificed. Read Full Story
(Goddess of Salt) Older sister of the Tlaloque (the attendants of the rain god). Her skirt had motifs of waves of water and jadeite. She was associated with the sea (salt water). Read Full Story
(Hummingbird of the Left, Hummingbird of the South) Supreme and patron deity of the Aztec, god of sun, fire, and war, he is the Blue Tezcatlipoca. He wears a blue-green hummingbird headdress and carries the xiuhcoatl, the fire serpent that is the weapon he uses to fight his enemies. He frequently is represented bearing on his back the anecuyotl, the head of a fantastic animal. He led the Mexica during part of their pilgrimage from Aztlan to the promise land of the Valley of Mexico and determi... Read Full Story
(Old God) God of the hearth and the household and lord of fire. He is represented as an old figure with his legs crossed and his hands resting on the knees. Often he has some features of Tlaloc, expressing a link between the two deities. He holds in his head a huge brazier that was used for burning incense or even to produce fire. Read Full Story
