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CHALCHIUTLICUE - or Chalchihuitlicue, Aztec goddess of rivers, lakes, streams, and other freshwaters. Chalchiutlicue means She Who Wears a Jade Skirt; she was also called Matlalcueye (She Who Wears a Green Skirt). Wife (in some myths, sister) of the rain god Tlaloc, in Aztec cosmology she was the fourth of the previous suns; in her reign, maize (corn) was first used. Like other water deities, she was often associated with serpents.
��������Not to be confused with Chalchiutlicue was Huixtocihuatl (Salt Lady), goddess of salt water, of the salters guild, and of dissolute women.

CHICOMECOATL - Aztec goddess of sustenance and, hence, of maize (corn). Chicomecoatl means Seven-Serpent, an esoteric name for maize; she was also called Chicomolotzin (Seven Ears of Maize). A very ancient goddess of Nahua-speaking peoples, she was one of several maize deities, of whom Centeotl (the god of the maize plant) and Xilonen (goddess of the young corn) were especially important.

COATLICUE - Aztec earth goddess, symbol of the earth as creator and destroyer, mother of the gods and men. Coatlicue means Serpent Skirt. The idea she embodies is powerfully concretized in her statue (Museo National de Antropologia, Mexico City) - her face is of two fanged serpents; her skirt is of interwoven snakes (snakes symbolize fertility); her breasts are flabby (she nourished men and gods); her necklace is of hands, hearts and a skull; her fingers and toes are claws (she feeds on men, as the earth consumes all that dies).
��������Called also Teteoinnan (Mother of the Gods) and Toci (Our Grandmother), she was but a manifestation of the earth goddess, who also appeared as Cihuacoatl (Snake Woman; like Coatlicue, called Tonantzin [Our Mother]), fearsome goddess of childbirth, and as Tlazolteotl (q.v.), goddess of impurity.

HUITZILOPOCHTLI - also spelled Uitzilopochtli (from huitzilin, "hummingbird," and opochtli, "left"), Aztec sun and war god. Because the Aztecs believed that dead warriors were reincarnated as hummingbirds and because the south considered the left side of the world, Huitzilopochtli's name, therefore, meant the Resuscitated Warrior of the South. His other names included Xiuhpilli (Turquoise Prince) and Totec (Our Lord). His nagual, or animal disguise, was the eagle.
�������� Traditionally, Huitzilopochtli was thought to have been born on the Coatepec Mountain, near the city of Tula. His mother Coatlicue, an earth goddess, conceived him after having kept in her bosom a ball of hummingbird feathers (i.e. the soul of a warrior) that fell from the sky. His brothers, the Centzon Huitznaua (Four Hundred Southerners), stars of the southern sky, and his sister Coyolxauhqui, a night goddess decided to kill him, but he exterminated them with his weapon, the xiuhcoatl ("turquoise snake").
�������� Other myths presented Huitzilopochtli as the divine leader of the tribe during the long migration that brought the Aztecs from Aztlan, their traditional home, to the Valley of Mexico. His image, in the form of a hummingbird, was carried upon the shoulders of the priests, and at night his voice was heard giving orders. Thus, according to Huitzilopochtli's command, Tenochtitlan the Aztec capital, was founded in AD 1325 on a small rocky island in the lake of the Valley of Mexico. The god's first shrine was built on a spot where priests found an eagle poised upon a rock and devouring a snake. Successive Aztec rulers enlarged the shrine until the year "Eight Reed" (1487), when an impressive temple was dedicated by the emperor Ahuitzotl.
��������Representations of Huitzilopochtli usually showed him as a hummingbird or as a warrior with armour and helmet made of humming bird feathers. His legs, arms and the lower part of his face were painted blue; the upper half of his face was black. He wore an elaborate feathered headdress and brandished a round shield and a turquoise snake.
��������The 15th month of the ceremonial year, Panquetzaliztli (Feast of Flags of Precious Feathers), was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and to his lieutenant Paynal (He Who Hastens, so named because the priest who impersonated him ran while leading a procession around the city). During the month, numerous rites were celebrated; warriors and auianime ("courtesans") danced night after night on the plaza in front of the god's temple. War prisoners or slaves ceremonially bathed in a sacred spring at Huitzilopochco (modern Churubusco, near Mexico City) and were then sacrificed either during Paynal's procession or after it on the sacrificial stone of the main temple. The priests also burned a huge bark-paper serpent symbolizing the god's primary weapon. Finally, an image of Huitzilopochtli, made of ground maize, was ceremonially killed with an arrow and divided between the priests and the novices; the young men who ate "Huitzilopochtli's body" were obliged to serve him for one year.
��������The Aztecs believed that the sun god needed daily "nourishment" (tlaxcaltiliztli) - that is, human blood and hearts - and that they, as the "people of the sun," were required to provide the sun god with his victims. The sacrificial hearts were offered to the sun quauhtlehuanitl ("eagle who rises") and burned in the quauhxicalli ("the eagle's vase"). Warriors who died in battle or on the sacrificial stone were called quauhteca ("the eagle's people"). It was believed that after their death the warriors first formed part of the sun's brilliant retinue; then, after four years, they went to live forever in the bodies of hummingbirds.
Huitzilopochtli's high priest, the Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui (Feathered Serpent, Priest of Our Lord), was, with god Tlaloc's high priest, one of the two heads of the Aztec clergy.

MICTLANTECUHTLI - Aztec god of the dead, usually portrayed with a skull face. With his wife, Mictecacihuatl, he ruled Mictlan, the underworld. Souls of those warriors whose manner of death failed to call them to various paradises (for those dead by war, sacrifice, childbirth, drowning, lightning, and certain diseases) made a four-year journey, fraught with trials, through the nine hells of Mictlan. In the last, where Mictlantecuhtli dwelled, they disappeared or found rest.

NAGUAL - personal guardian spirit believed by some Meso-American Indians to reside in an animal or bird. The word derives from the Nahuatl word nahualli ("disguise"), applied to the animal forms magically assumed by sorcerers. The person who was to receive his nagual, traditionally went into the forest and slept there; the animal that appeared in his dreams or that confronted him when he awakened would thereafter be his particular nagual. Among many modern Meso-American Indians, it is believed that the first creature to cross over the ashes spread before a newborn baby becomes that child's nagual. When a man's nagual animal died, that man supposedly also died, and vice versa. The nagual is similar to the West African bush soul and to the ancient Roman individual genius.

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NAGUALISM - (derived from Aztec naualli), a widespread belief among North, Central, and South American Indians that certain individuals have the power to transform themselves into animals in order to perform evil activities. This belief has frequently been confused with another Indian belief that each individual possesses an animal guardian spirit.

OMETECUHTLI - remote Aztec creator deity; his name means Lord of Duality. With his wife, Omecihuatl (Lady of Duality), he resided in the 13th and the highest of the Aztec heavens. They were alternately known as Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl (Lord and Lady of Our Sustenance). The dual creative principle was sometimes expressed by a supreme deity called Ometeotl (God of Duality) or Tloque Nahuaque (Unique God).

QUETZALCOATL - (from quetzalli, "precious feather," and coatl, "snake"), the Feathered Serpent, one of the major deities of the ancient Mexican pantheon. Representations of a feathered snake occur as early as the Teotihuacan civilization (3rd to 8th centuries AD) on the central plateau. At that time, Quetzalcoatl seems, to have been conceived as a vegetation god - an earth and water deity closely associated with the rain god Tlaloc.
��������With the immigration of Nahua-speaking tribes from the north, Quetzalcoatl's cult underwent drastic changes. The subsequent Toltec culture (9th century through 12th century), centred at the city of Tula, emphasized by war, and human sacrifice linked with the worship of heavenly bodies. Quetzalcoatl thus became the god of morning and evening star, and his temple was the centre of ceremonial life in Tula.
��������In Aztec times (14th through 16th centuries) Quetzalcoatl was revered as the patron of priests, the inventor of the calendar and of books, and the protector of goldsmiths and other craftsmen; he was also identified with the planet Venus. As the morning and evening star, Quetzalcoatl was the symbol of death and resurrection. With his companion Xolotl, a dog-headed god, he was said to have descended to the underground hell of Mictlan to gather the bones of the ancient dead. Those bones he anointed with his own blood, giving birth to the men who inhabit the present universe.
��������One important body of myths describes Quetzalcoatl as the priest-king of Tula, the capital of the Toltecs. He never offered human victims, only snakes, birds, and butterflies. But the god of the night sky, Tezcatlipoca (q.v.) expelled him from Tula by performing feats of black magic. Quetzalcoatl wandered down the coast of the "divine water" (the Atlantic Coast) and then immolated himself on a pyre, emerging as the planet Venus. According to another version, he embarked upon a raft made of snakes and disappeared beyond the eastern horizon.
��������The legend of the victory of Tezcatlipoca over the Feathered Serpent probably reflects historical fact. The first century of the Toltec civilization was dominated by the Teotihuacan culture, with it's inspired ideals of priestly rule and peaceful behaviour. The pressure of the northern immigrants brought about a social and religious revolution, with a military ruling class seizing power from the priests. Quetzalcoatl's defeat symbolized the downfall of the Classic theocracy. His sea voyage to the east should probably be connected with the invasion of the Itza, a tribe that showed strong Toltec features. Quetzalcoatl's calendar was Ce Acatl (One Reed). The belief that he would return from the east in a "One Reed" year led the Aztec sovereign Montezuma II to regard the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes and his comrades as divine envoys, because in 1519, the year in which they landed on the Mexican Gulf coast, was a "One Reed" year.
��������In addition to his guise as a plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl was often represented as a man with a beard; as Ehecatl, the wind god, he was shown with a mask with two protruding tubes (through which the wind blew) and a conical hat typical of the Huastec tribe of northeastern Mexico. The temple Quetzalcoatl at Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was a round building, a shape that fit the god's personality as Ehecatl. Circular temples were believed to please Ehecatl because they offered no sharp obstacles to the wind. Round monuments occur particularly often in Huastec territory.
Quetzalcoatl ruled over the days that bore the name ehecatl ("wind") and over the second 13-day series of the ritual calendar. He was also the ninth of the 13 gods of the day-time hours. Although he was generally listed as one of the first-rank deities, no ceremonial month was dedicated to his cult.
��������God of learning, of writing, and of books, he was particularly venerated in the calmecac, religious colleges annexed to the temples, in which the future priests and the sons of the nobility were educated. Outside of Tenochtitlan, the main centre of Quetzalcoatl's cult was Cholula, on the Puebla plateau.

TEZCATLIPOCA - a god of the Great Bear constellation and of the night sky, one of the major deities of the Aztec pantheon. Tezcatlipoca's cult was brought to central Mexico by the Toltecs, Nahua-speaking warriors from the north, about the end of the 10th century AD. Numerous myths relate how he expelled the priest-king Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, from his centre at Tula. A protean wizard, he caused the death of many Toltecs by his black magic and induced the virtuous Quetzalcoatl to sin, drunkenness, and carnal love, thus putting an end to the Toltec golden age. Under his influence the practice of human sacrifice was introduced to central Mexico. Tezcatlipoca's nagual, or animal disguise, was the jaguar, the spotted skin of which was compared to the starry sky. A creator god, Tezcatlipoca ruled over Ocelotonatiuh (Jaguar-Sun), the first of four worlds that were created and destroyed before the present universe.
������Tezcatlipoca was generally represented with a stripe of black paint across his face and an obsidian mirror in place of one of his feet (his name means Smoking Mirror). The post-Classic (after 900) Maya-Quiche people of Guatemala revered him as a lightning god under the name Hurakan (One Foot). Other representations show Tezcatlipoca with his mirror on his chest. In it he saw everything; invisible and omnipresent, he knew all the deeds and thoughts of men.
��������In Aztec times (14th - 16th centuries AD), Tezcatlipoca's manifold attributes and functions brought him to the summit of the divine hierarchy, where he ruled together with Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc, and Quezalcoatl (qq.v.). Called Yoalli Ehecatl (Night Wind), Yaotl (Warrior), and Telpochtli (Young Man), he was said to appear at crossroads at night to challenge warriors. He presided over the telpochcalli ("young men's houses"), district schools in which the sons of the common people received an elementary education and military training. Protector of slaves, he severely punished masters who ill-treated "Tezcatlipoca's beloved children." He rewarded virtue by bestowing riches and fame, and he chastised wrongdoers by sending them sickness (e.g. leprosy) or by reducing them to poverty and slavery.
��������The main feature of Tezcatlipoca's cult took place during the fifth ritual month, Toxcatl. Every year at that time, the priest selected a young and handsome war prisoner. For one year he lived in princely luxury, impersonating the god. Four beautiful girls dressed as goddesses were chosen as his companions. On the appointed feast day he climbed the steps of a small temple while breaking flutes that he had played. At the top he was sacrificed by the removal of his heart.
Outside of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, Tezcatlipoca was especially revered at Texcoco and in the Mixteca-Puebla region between Oaxaca and Tlaxcala.

TLALOC - The Aztec rain god; his name means He Who Makes Things Sprout. Representations of a rain god wearing a peculiar mask, with large round eyes and long fangs, date at least to the Teotihuacan culture of the highlands (3rd to 8th centuries AD). His characteristic features were strikingly similar to those of the Maya rain god Chac of the same period.
��������During Aztec times (14th to 16th centuries), Tlaloc's cult was apparently considered extremely important and had spread throughout Mexico. In the divinatory calendars, Tlaloc was the eighth ruler of the days and the ninth lord of the nights.
��������Five months of the 18-month ritual year were dedicated to Tlaloc and to his fellow deities, the Tlaloque, who were believed to dwell on th mountaintops. Children were sacrificed to Tlaloc on the first month, Atlcaualo, and on the third, Tozoztontli. During the sixth month, Etzalqualiztli, the rain priests ceremonially bathed in the lake; they imitated the cries of the waterfowls and used magic "fog bells" (ayauhchicauaztli) in order to obtain rain. The 13th month, Tepeilhuitl, was dedicated to the mountain Tlaloque; small idols made of amaranth paste were ritually killed and eaten. A similar rite was held on the 16th month, Atemoztli.
��������Tlaloc had been one of the main deities of the agricultural tribes of central Mexico for many centuries, until the warlike northern tribes invaded that part of the country, bringing with them the astral cults of the sun (Huitzilopochtli) and the starry night (Tezcatlipoca). Aztec syncretism placed both Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc at the head of the pantheon. The Teocalli (Great Temple) at Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, supported on it's lofty pyramid two sanctuaries of equal size: one, dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, was painted in white and red, and the other, dedicated to Tlaloc, was painted in white and blue. The rain god's high priest, the Quetzalcoatl Tlaloc Tlamacazqui (Feathered Serpent, Priest of Tlaloc) ruled with a title and rank equal to that of the sun god's high priest.
��������Tlaloc was not only highly revered, but he was also greatly feared. He could send out the rain or provoke drought and hunger. He hurled lightning upon the earth and unleashed the devastating hurricanes. The Tlaloque, it was believed, could send down to the earth different kinds of rain, beneficent or crop-destroying. Certain illnesses, such as dropsy, leprosy, and rheumatism, were said to be caused by Tlaloc and his fellow deities. Although the dead were generally cremated, those who had died from one of the special illnesses or who had drowned or who had been struck by lightning were buried. Tlaloc bestowed on them an eternal and blissful life in his paradise, Tlalocan.
��������Associated with Tlaloc was his companion, Chalchiuhtlicue (She Who Wears a Jade Skirt), also called Matlalcueye (She Who Wears a Green Skirt), the goddess of freshwater lakes and streams.

TLAZOLTEOTL - also called Tlaelquarni, Aztec goddess of carnal love who consumed men's suns; penitents, therefore, confessed before her priests to purify themselves. Her name and it's variant mean Goddess of Impurity and Devourer of Filth, respectively. An aspect of the terrible earth goddess, Tlazolteotl, like Coatlicue (q.v.) was also called Teteoinnan, (Mother of the Gods) and Toci (Our Grandmother).

TONALPOHUALLI - in the Nahuatl language, ancient 260-day sacred almanac of many Meso-American cultures, including Maya, Mixtec, and Aztec. Used as early as the pre-Classic period (before c.AD 100) in Monte Alban (Oaxaca), the almanac set the date for certain rituals and was a means of divination. It is a cycle of days resulting when the numbers 1 to 13 are juxtaposed with day names of the 20-day "month": 1 Alligator, 2 Wind . . . 13 Reed, 1 Jaguar, etc. Each combination of name and number occurs once in 260 (20 X 13) days. The cycle functions today among the Mixe (Oaxaca) and the Maya.

TONATIUH - Nahua sun deity of the present (fifth) era (the Fifth Sun). In most myths of the Nahua peoples (including the Aztec), four eras preceded the present one. Associated with the first era, 4 Jaguar, were the god Tezcatlipoca as sun and the sun at sunset or sunrise (Tlalchitonatiuh). There followed the era 4 Wind, ruled by Quetzalcoatl (in his aspect Ehecatl, the wind god) as sun; 4 Rain, ruled by Tlaloc, the rain god; and 4 Water, ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water. Tonatiuh, or Ollin Tonatiuh, was associated with the eagle (at sunrise and sunset) and, in Aztec versions, with the deity Huitzilopochtli.

XIPE TOTEC - Mexican god of spring (the beginning of the rainy season) and of new vegetation; he was also the patron of goldsmiths. As a symbol of the new vegetation, Xipe Totec wore the skin of a human victim - the "new skin" that covered the earth in the spring. His statues and stone masks always showed him wearing a freshly flayed skin (his name means Our Lord the Flayed One).
��������Described as anauatl iteouh ("god of the coast"), Xipe Totec was originally a deity of the Zapotec and Yopi Indians in the present states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, an area believed to be particularly rich in gold. Among the Zapotecs he was considered a vegetation god and was associated with the Feathered Serpent (Quetzalcoatl). Xipe Totec was definately considered a foreign god, and his temple bore the name Yopico, or the Yopi Place
��������Representations of Xipe Totec first appeared at Xolalpan, near Teotihuacan, and at Texcoco, in connection with the Mazapan culture - that is, during the post-Classic Toltec phase (9th - 12th centuries AD). The Aztecs later adopted his cult under the reign of Axayacatl (1469-81).
��������During the second ritual month of the Aztec year, Tlacaxipehualiztli (Flaying of Men), the priests killed human victims by removing their hearts. They flayed the bodies and put on the skins, which were dyed yellow and called teocuitlaquemitl ("golden clothes"). Other victims were fastened to a frame and put to death by arrows; their blood dripping down was believed to symbolize the fertile spring rains. A hymn sung in honour of Xipe Totec called him Yoalli Tlauana (Night Drinker) because beneficent rains fell during the night; it thanked him for bringing the Feathered Serpent, symbol of plenty, and for averting drought.

XIUHTECUHTLI - Aztec god of fire; his most common manifestation was Xiuhcoatl, the serpent of fire. Xiuhtecuhtli means turquoise lord, turquoise (xiuitl) being the esoteric name of fire. One of the most ancient Meso-American divinities, he was also called Huehueteotl (Old God), in which guise he was represented as a bent, toothless old man carrying a brazier on his shoulders.

XOCHIQUETZAL - Aztec goddess of beauty, sexual love, and household arts. She is also associated with flowers and plants and, in myth, came from Tamoanchan, the verdant paradise of the west; her name means Flower Feather.
Originally the wife of Tlaloc, the rain god, she was abducted for her beauty by Tezcatlipoca, the malevolent god of night, who enthroned her as goddess of love. In some areas she was identified with Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of freshwater.