Huitzilopochtli
HUITZILOPOCHTLI ("hummingbird of the south") was the most powerful god in Aztec religion. The tribal god of the wandering Méxica, he became the patron deity of the Aztec ceremonial capital, Tenochtitlán (1325–1521). Primary sources depict the dual nature of the god, including a human aspect as left-handed warrior hero and a divine aspect as the solar god who kills the powers of the night. Both aspects express a single fact about Huitzilopochtli: He was a terrible, overwhelming warrior who completely dominated his enemies.
At the time of the Spanish conquest in 1521, Huitzilopochtli's shrine was situated, along with that of the rain god Tlaloc, on top of the largest pyramid in the Aztec empire, the Templo Mayor (Great Temple) of Tenochtitlán. His spectacular religious development from a tribal god to the principal god of the imperial capital is reflected in two mythical episodes that were ritually celebrated by the Aztec. The first, telling of the founding of the city, appears in the Historia de la nación mexicana and in the Codex Boturini, which recount how Huitzilopochtli led the Méxica from Chicomoztoc ("place of the seven caves") into the Valley of Mexico. In a second episode, Huitzilopochtli appears in the form of a giant eagle landing on a blooming cactus growing from a rock in the center of Lake Tezcoco in 1325 CE, the date of the founding of the Aztec capital. This event, pictured in the Codex Mendoza, is marked by the construction of a shrine to Huitzilopochtli and the division of the community into five parts.
This shrine (which became the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlán) and much of the ritual activity associated with it were modeled after the myth of Huitzilopochtli's birth recorded in book 3 of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (1569–1582; also known as the Florentine Codex). The teotuicatl ("divine song") of the god's birth depicts a society of the gods preparing for war at the cosmic mountain, Coatepec ("serpent mountain"), where the mother of the gods, Coatlicue, has been mysteriously impregnated by a ball of feathers. Her four hundred children, enraged at her pregnancy, launch an attack. At the critical moment, Coatlicue gives birth to Huitzilopochtli, fully grown and dressed for war. He takes his xiuhcoatl ("serpent of lightning") and slaughters the attacking siblings. This episode has been variously interpreted by scholars as depicting a historical event or an astral encounter of the sun conquering the moon and stars.
Huitzilopochtli's supreme power was lavishly celebrated at the festival of Panquetzalitzli ("raising of banners"), which involved special human sacrifices following an opening ritual called Ipaina Huitzilopochtli ("the swiftness of Huitzilopochtli"). In the latter ritual, according to Fray Diego Durán in Los dioses y ritos and El calendario (c. 1581), a swift runner carried a dough image of the god through the streets of the capital, pursued by a multitude of "travelers" who never managed to catch him. This signified that Huitzilopochtli was never captured in war, but was always triumphant over his enemies.
Historically, following the formation of the Aztec state with the successful revolution against the empire of Azcapotzalco in 1428, the cult of Huitzilopochtli came to include massive human sacrifices of captured warriors, women, and children, which, the Aztec believed, contributed to the integration of the Aztec state, cosmic order, and Huitzilopochtli's dominance.
Bibliography
Carrasco, Davíd. "Templo Mayor: The Aztec Vision of Place." Religion 3 (July 1981): 275–297. This article relates Huitzilopochtli's mythology to the architectural structure of the Aztec Great Temple and utilizes evidence from the excavations that took place in Mexico City between 1978 and 1982.
Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo. "El Templo Mayor: Economia e ideología." In El Templo Mayor: Excavaciones y estudios, edited by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma. Mexico City, 1982. A basic description of the complex evidence associated with Huitzilopochtli's cult at the center of the Aztec empire.
New Sources
Boone, Elizabeth H. Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe. Philadelphia, 1989.
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. "Huitzilopochtli's Conquest: Aztec Ideology in the Archaeological Record." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 8 (1998): 3–14.
Nicholson, Irene. Mexican and Central American Mythology. New York, 1985.
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