Tlacaelel was never an emperor himself but he was a cihuacoatl or a supreme leader and advisor. However, Tlacaelel was also the one who elevated Huitzilopochtli from a smaller tribal god into the god of Tenochtitlan and of the Aztec Empire. Before Tlacaelel, the Aztecs actually worshipped other gods much more vehemently than they did Huitzilopochtli.
Such gods included Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca , Tlaloc , the former sun god Nanahuatzin , and others. In other words, all the above mythos about Huitzilopochtli creating the Aztec people and leading them to Tenochtitlan were established after the fact. The god and large parts of its mythology existed before Tlacaelel but it was the cihuacoatl who elevated Huitzilopochtli into the main deity of the Aztec people.
As is written in the Florentine Codex — a collection of documents on the religious cosmology, ritual practices, and culture of the Aztecs — Tlacaelel I had a vision that the warriors who died in battle and women who died in childbirth would serve Huitzilopochtli in the afterlife. Wherever this palace is, the Florentine Codes describes it as shining so bright that the fallen warriors have to raise their shields to cover their eyes.
They could only see Huitzilopochtli through the holes in their shields, therefore only the bravest warriors with the most damaged shields would manage to properly see Huitzilopochtli. Then, both the fallen warriors and the women who died at childbirth were transformed into hummingbirds. It was devoted to the two most important gods for the Mexica people in Tenochtitlan — the rain god Tlaloc and the sun and war god Huitzilopochtli.
The temple is believed to have been expanded eleven times during the existence of Tenochtitlan with the last major expansion happening in 1, AD, just 34 years before the invasion of the Spanish conquistadors. This last upgrade was also celebrated with 20, ritual sacrifices of prisoners of war captured from other tribes.
The temple itself had a pyramidal shape with two temples sitting at its very top — one for each deity. When speaking about Aztec sun gods, we have to spare a mention for Nanahuatzin — the original solar god from the old Nahua legends of the Aztecs. He was known as the humblest of the gods. According to his legend, he sacrificed himself in fire to make sure that he would continue to shine over the Earth as its sun. His name translates as Full of Sores and the suffix —tzin implies familiarity and respect.
This can depend on the legend, however, as do some other aspects of Nanahuatzin and his family. For better or for worse, the Aztec empire simply needed a more war-like and aggressive patron god than the humble Nanahuatzin.
Huitzilopochtli is not just one of the most famous Aztec gods possibly second only to Quetzalcoatl who is very well-known today but he was also arguably the most influential one. The Aztec empire was built on a never-ending conquest and war over the other tribes in Mesoamerica and the worship of Huitzilopochtli was at the very heart of that.
The system of sacrificing enemy captives to Huitzilopochtli and allowing the conquered tribes to self-govern as client states in the empire had proved very effective up until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.
Ultimately, it backfired on the Aztecs as many of the client states and even members of the Triple Alliance betrayed Tenochtitlan to the Spanish. Barring that untimely end of the Aztec empire, the worship of Huitzilopochtli was definitely the driving force behind the Aztec empire. Symbolized by hummingbirds and eagles alike, Huitzilopochtli lives on to this day, as the emblem of modern-day Mexico still refers to the establishment of the city of Tenochtitlan. One notable pop-culture mention of Huitzilopochtli is the trading card game Vampire: The Eterna Struggle where he is portrayed as an Aztec vampire.
Given that the Aztecs literally fed Huitzilopochtli human hearts to keep him strong, this interpretation is hardly wrong. As one of the most influential Aztec gods that drove the need for more conquests and capturing of enemies, Huitzilopochtli was at the heart of the Aztec empire. Worshipped with fervor and constantly offered sacrifices, the Aztec sun and war god was a powerful warrior whose influence can still be seen in present day Mexico.
Tags: Aztec. Affiliate Disclosures. Table of Contents Who is Huitzilopochtli? Huitzilopochtli — Codex Telleriano-Remensis. Emblem of Mexico. Human sacrifice as shown in the Codex Magliabechiano.
Public Domain. Save Saved Removed 0. Previous Great Roman Emperors List. Related Articles. The hummingbird imagery is so important that it has become the defining feature of most depictions of Huitzilopochtli and one of the few ways to easily identify him among the Mesoamerican gods. Huitzilopochtli had quite a few different symbols. One of the major symbols with which he was associated with in both his bird and human forms was the hummingbird.
He was also closely associated with the sun, especially in his aspect as the warrior who fought against the darkness. Perhaps his most important symbol, though, was the capital city of Tenochtitlan. While most gods in Mesoamerica would be responsible for certain types of war or certain types of weaponry, Huitzilopochtli was responsible for all of it. As such, the Mexica attributed everything that happened on the battlefield to Huitzilopochtli — even if they lost.
It was a situation that saw a great deal of power handed over to the god. The other major power of Huitzilopochtli was his ability to fight back the encroaching night. While sun gods traditionally were associated with the cycle of the day, Huitzilopochtli had a more pressing duty. It was through him that an encroaching permanent could be fought off, and only Huitzilopochtli was mighty enough for this task.
Many of the major Aztec sacrifices were intended to help Huitzilopochtli fight off the darkness. It should also be noted that Huitzilopochtli was a god of the afterlife as well. If Aztec soldiers were killed in battle or women died in childbirth, they were said to join Huitzilopochtli.
Though he was not a death god, he did still have command of those souls that fell in those specific circumstances and they would serve in his palace. Huitzilopochtli actually has a fairly wide-ranging family in Aztec myth, though figuring out exactly to whom he is related requires reading specific stories. In the first story, Huitzilopochtli is the son of Tonacatecutli and Tonacacihuatl, the universal creators.
According to this myth, his brothers are two gods called Tezcatlipocas as well as Quetzalcoatl. In a different myth cycle, he is the son of the goddess Coatlicue. This myth cycled gives him four hundred brothers, the Centzonuitznaua, as well as a sister called Coyolxauhqui. Regardless of the myth cycle, Huitzilopochtli seems to have no children.
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