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https://www.google.ca/amp/s/newlemurians.wordpress.com/2016/10/08/tezcatlipoca/amp/
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” Tezcatlipoca was one of the most important gods of the Aztecs of central Mexico. His name, meaning Lord of the Smoking Mirror, refers to the mirrors made of obsidian, a shiny black stone, that Aztec priests used in divination (sounds a lot like church, yeah?).Tezcatlipoca played many contradictory roles in Aztec mythology. Like other Aztec deities, he could be both helpful and destructive. As a god of the sun, he ripened the crops but could also send a burning drought that killed the plants. The patron god of helpless folk such as orphans and slaves, he was also the patron of royalty, and he gloried in war and human sacrifice. Another of Tezcatlipoca’s roles was to punish sinners and cheats, but he himself could not be trusted.Although associated with the sun, Tezcatlipoca was even more strongly linked with night and its dark mysteries, including dreams, sorcery, witches, and demons. Legend said that he roamed the earth each night in the form of a skeleton whose ribs opened like doors. If a person met Tezcatlipoca and was bold enough to reach through those doors and seize his heart, the god would promise riches and power in order to be released. He would not keep his promises, though. He was a trickster, a mischievous figure appearing in various forms in the folktales and mythology of many different peoples.As a trickster god, Tezcatlipoca delighted in overturning the order of things, causing conflict and confusion. Sometimes, these disruptions could also be a source of creative energy and positive change. Tezcatlipoca’s ultimate trick was one he played on his fellow god Quetzalcoatl. After introducing Quetzalcoatl to drunkenness and other vices, he used his mirror to show Quetzalcoatl how weak and degraded he had become. Quetzalcoatl fled the world in shame, leaving it to Tezcatlipoca. He did, however, promise to return at the end of a 52-year cycle.Tezcatlipoca has different names: as Titlacauan or ‘We his Slaves’. Tezcatlipoca represented a source of universal power, just like his identity as Moyocoyatzin or ‘Maker of Himself’. In this role, the deity did everything that he wanted to as nobody, mortal or immortal, could stop him. Nahua belief in Tezcatlipoca’s potential to destroy and pull down the sky, killing all living things, served to gauge his position as possibly the most powerful of all Aztec deities. Other names such as Nécoc Yaotl, ‘Enemy’, confirm his position as the ‘sower of discord’. Telpochtli or ‘Male Youth’, classed him as patron of the Telpochcalli, school for commoners. Additionally, he was called Yohualli Ehécatl, ‘Night Wind’, Ome Acatl, ‘Two Reed’, and Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque, ‘Possessor of Sky and Earth’. Tezcatlipoca, from the Codex Féjérvary-Mayer (illustrations found in the Aztec codices; books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs)Tezcatlipoca was one of the most important gods of the Aztecs of central Mexico. His name, meaning Lord of the Smoking Mirror, refers to the mirrors made of obsidian, a shiny black stone, that Aztec priests used in divination.Tezcatlipoca played many contradictory roles in Aztec mythology. Like other Aztec deities, he could be both helpful and destructive. As a god of the sun, he ripened the crops but could also send a burning drought that killed the plants. The patron god of helpless folk such as orphans and slaves, he was also the patron of royalty, and he gloried in war and human sacrifice. Another of Tezcatlipoca’s roles was to punish sinners and cheats, but he himself could not be trusted.Although associated with the sun, Tezcatlipoca was even more strongly linked with night and its dark mysteries, including dreams, sorcery, witches, and demons. Legend said that he roamed the earth each night in the form of a skeleton whose ribs opened like doors. If a person met Tezcatlipoca and was bold enough to reach through those doors and seize his heart, the god would promise riches and power in order to be released. He would not keep his promises, though.As a trickster god, Tezcatlipoca delighted in overturning the order of things, causing conflict and confusion. Sometimes, these disruptions could also be a source of creative energy and positive change. Tezcatlipoca’s ultimate trick was one he played on his fellow god Quetzalcoatl. After introducing Quetzalcoatl to drunkenness and other vices, he used his mirror to show Quetzalcoatl how weak and degraded he had become. Quetzalcoatl fled the world in shame, leaving it to Tezcatlipoca. He did, however, promise to return at the end of a 52-year cycleTezcatlipoca as a jaguar or ocelot, from the Codex Borbonicus. TezcatlipocaTepeyollotl-Tezcatlipoca – jaguar god.TezcatlipocaTeotlAs well as with Christians, seemingly inspired by mythologies of India, they conceived a triune God, and one, in the same way the nahoas conceived to teotl dual and one, male and female, husband and wife. This duality omeyotl called her, and to the place or the sky in which he dwelt, they called him omeyocan “Mansion of the duality”. The man of this duality was the name of ometecutli, and the woman the of omecihuatl. The omeyotl or duality created a generation of divinities, and these are confused the sexes until we know what they belong to, as happens with mixcoatl and with centeotl, which sometimes are considered as males, and others such as women, because the mythology presents them as gods, or goddesses.Orozco Y Berra says that in the religion nahoa are united, a disembodied, invisible God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, with two gods apparently increados, parents of a generation of divinities. I don’t think so. The disembodied, invisible God, the creator and sustainer of the universe is the omeyotl, duality, in the same way as in the Christian Trinity is unity. These call the supreme being, Triune and one, and those, the nahoas, they call it dual and one.It has been done to observe by some authors that religion nahoa, from the most abstract ideas descends to the more rude in the consecrated offerings to the animated and inanimate matter: the veterinary approval (2) are already powerful spirits, men, the deified Fish or the frog, the stars, the source and the fresh mount gloomy: already a God only presides over the world, it is essential that a numen direct each and every one of the sciences, the arts, of the occupations of life, The actions in the present and future existence. But other authors have done to note that in the Greek and Roman mythology, is the same phenomenon, and contrasts with disgusting and abhorrent: shovels inspiring the sciences, and Venus the pleasures of the flesh; Apollo lighting up to the poets and bacchus igniting the drunken; the Deified vices to the couple that the virtues; and above all, Jupiter, the supreme being, offending his chaste wife, and dragging her to cruel revenge, with its many adulteries.Chavero asserts that the word teotl not expressing a spiritual God, and what sustains saying:“According to all the vocabularies means God; but not the spiritual being and unique. It was more generic name of the divinities of the Aztecs: and so they had to centeotl deity of the corn to tlazolteotl, the goddess of filth, and many more. The Dead are also called teotl, and they said teotl guy or God guy. In the hieroglyphic writing represented the word teotl for a sun. So this voice teotl never give the idea of a spiritual being and only; it was common name applied to all the deities, and if it is personified in the sun, it was for the same thing to be a representation of a material.”We have already seen that the omeyotl the “duality”, created a generation of beings that were not the men, and that they will be called Gods for his immediate origin of the supreme God. They were like the angels of the Jews and the Christians, beings intermediate between God and men, who took part of the divine nature, and that by their duties towards humanity are classified as guard Gods, to the men, the guide, the Rewarded and punished. Also in many religions is the name of the gods to the dead and even to the living; such was the end of the apotheosis between the Greeks and the Romans; and such are also the canonizations Santos who does the Catholic Church, well, If you don’t call them Gods, yes conferred by the power of God, since they resurrect the dead, and as taumaturgos violated all the laws of nature. So in the religion of the nahoas side, the Gods, the created by the omeyotl, are the ministers of it; the two tezcatlipoca, quetzalcoatl and huitzilopochtli were responsible for the creation of the visible world, and others were destined for preservation; such Were the ones who ruled the winds, the waters and the fire, as ehecatl, tlaloc, chalchiuicueye and xiuhtecutli; and those who looked after the animals and the maintenance, as mixcoatl, Amimitl, xilomen and chicomecoatl. In the end, as peoples deificaron polytheists, the same as natural beings, animals, mountains, water, winds and fruits of the earth; but without losing the idea of the supreme being.Is it true that in the hieroglyphic writing represented with a sun the word teotl; but not because I believe that the sun was the supreme being, but because among the creatures visible was for them the greatest manifestation of the invisible God, as it has been for all The peoples, for da heat, light, life to all beings. They could never conceive the nahoas the sun as the supreme God, for in his cosmogony figure like creature that appeared and disappeared; in the beginning was the sun god tezcatlipoca; disappeared this, and it was the God quetzalcoatl; and they were after and successively tlaloc His wife chalchiuitlicue; finally, at the dedication of the pyramids of teotihuacan teteohuacan (today) was the sun nanahuatzin, one of the 1600 Gods that were born from the flint that gave birth to the omecihuatl and that the gods of heaven, his brothers, Dropped to the ground. All these myths symbolize the fire in the sky, focused on the sun, and in the earth, in the form of flint, tecpatl; but in all of them, it appears the fire, xiutecutli tletl, like creature that comes from the omeyotl, and Not like the supreme being. In addition, all the teogonías nahoas tell us that the omeyotl had his mansion, the omeyocan in the heavens above, and put the fire out, the sun, in the lower, with the planet Venus. To paraphrase this theogony we said in our booklet the four Suns:“The great ometecutli, in omeyocan,Abode of pleasure and wealth,With Omecihuatl, his consort, immortalHe formed the heavens of the obscura nothing,So that the finite beings morenThat the world will give light and life.Teotlatlauchco, mansion of the God of fire,Sky Fair of red fire,Came out the first of the mind uncreatedTo Light the anchuroso space: (1)The Teocozauhco, the yellow fireThe sky where the sun spreads his lightWith that illuminates the sphere, splendidHigh ardent emerged from the empyrean :(2)Véspero his mansion has in teoiztac (3)Do White Light Diffuses Mirage:These are the three heavens teteocan.” (4)(1) Teo-Tlatlauh-co is composed of teotl, God; tlatlauhqui, red; co, in, where ” in or where the red God ;” but, to paraphrase the concept, it means ” Mansion of the red God, The God of fire.” the creation of the teotlatlauhco amounts, in the cosmogony nahoa, to the creation of the light in the Genesis of Moses.(2) teocozauhco consists of teotl, God; Cozauhqui, yellow; co, in, where: ” where the yellow god ;” but, paraphrasing it means ” God’s mansion yellow.” the creation of the teocozauhco is the creation The Nebula Ignea that formed the sun.(3) Teo-iztac consists of teotl, God; iztac, white; the c end of times ago to co, in, where: ” where the white God.” here the God is the star of the evening . As the nahoas, in this case, don’t give you special name, we have used in the verse the poetic word véspero.(4) Teteo-can consists of teteo, God, plural of teotl, God; and of can, place: ” abode of the gods.” but the gods created, because, the ptices omeyotl, is the Omeyocan, the heavens above.1) Nahoas or nahua:The nahua etnolingüístico group are the most numerous of the Mexican Republic. However, I can’t talk to a single group nahua, because it is made up of various peoples who share the same language, but that are culturally particularities, due, in large measure, to the environment in which they live and the historical processes that have experienced . Are located in the states of puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero, Hidalgo, tlaxcala, Morelos, state of Mexico, Oaxaca, michoacán, Jalisco, Durango, San Luis Potosi and the federal district.Tezcatlipoca.Tezcatlipoca, whose foot has been taken by Tlalteotl, earth goddess. Codex Féjérvary-Mayer.Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, his brother, were chosen to create the new world of the Fifth Sun, so they turned into snakes and sought Tlalteotl in her watery depths. Upon finding her they tore her in two. However during the battle she bit off one of Tezcatlipoca’s feet .Defeated nonetheless, Tlalteotl had her bottom half thrown upwards by the brothers, thus forming the heavens. Her top half became the earth; her back was the mountains, and rivers ran down her sides. Tlalteotl, earth goddess, was sacrificed for the good of mankind, who lived from her body: the earth and sky. Therefore, it was understood that she must be rewardedNew Fire Ceremony, from the Borgia Codex.Cosmology, divination, and calendars:
The communal life of the Tenochca, as well as the construction of their society, was deeply intertwined with religious and cosmological beliefs. Similar to other Amerindian and meso-American traditions, the Mexica believed that other worlds (“suns”) had existed before this “fifth sun”. Complex ritual strategies on all societal levels had to safeguard life in all its forms from the lurking dangers of chaos and destruction – dangers which, obviously, had already ruined the grand city-states of the past (Teotihuacan, Tollan). Therefore, one finds a strong notion of omnipresent peril, sometimes even pessimism, in Aztec poetry, and a strong sense that the life cycle of this sun and of the rich centre of power and life in Tenochtitlan might also come to an end in the near future.Therefore, divination, astrology and the general interpretation of “frightening omens” (tetzauitl) were important means to be warned of possible imminent perils. The famous “Book XII” of Sahagún’s Historia General gives an impressive account of such “bad omens” preceding the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors (cf. opening paragraphs of Broken Spears). Before the start of any important enterprise, one would consult the “counters of days” (tonalpuhque), special priests with sound knowledge of calendars and astrology. With reference to the vigesimal (based on the number twenty) system of the tonalpohualli (“day count”) calendar, one had to be careful, for example, that the baptismal ritual of a newborn child would not fall into one of the “bad” days: the “sprinkling of the head with water” (nequatequilitztli) was postponed, accordingly, until a good combination of one of the twenty day-signs and numbers (1-13) was at hand.Based on their astronomic tradition, the Aztecs knew the solar year of 365 days (xihuitl), but the logical combination of twenty day-signs and thirteen numbers led to an artificial tonalpohualli-cycle of 260 days (perhaps an allusion to the human period of pregnancy?), which served basically as a divinatory tool as explained in the “Book of the Days”. The synthesis of both, xihuitl and tonalpohualli, resulted in five “superfluous, useless” (nemontemi) days per year – which were strongly associated with misfortune (18 portions of 20 days = 360; plus 5). Shifting five days per year, the start of every new year would move only between four (out of the twenty) day-signs, resulting altogether in a logic period or “age” of fifty-two years (13 numbers x 4 day-signs = 52), before another distinct 52-year “cycle” would commence. And at the end of every such “age”, it was always possible that this world might now arrive at its termination and annihilation: this was the fear during the final dark night after the last five nemontemi days of an age, when all the fires had been extinguished, and when new life-giving fire had to be “drilled” on the chest of a sacrificed human (cf. plate 1), with the trembling hope that the sun might eventually have enough power to rise again – for another age.Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl Tezcatlipoca and QuetzalcoatlTezcatlipoca was often described as a rival of another important god of the Aztecs, the culture hero, Quetzalcoatl. In one version of the Aztec creation account the myth of the Five Suns, the first creation, “The Sun of the Earth” was ruled by Tezcatlipoca but destroyed by Quetzalcoatl when he struck down Tezcatlipoca who then transformed into a jaguar. Quetzalcoatl became the ruler of the subsequent creation “Sun of Water”, and Tezcatlipoca destroyed the third creation “The Sun of Wind” by striking down Quetzalcoatl.In later myths, the four gods who created the world, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli and Xipe Totec were referred to respectively as the Black, the White, the Blue and the Red Tezcatlipoca. The four Tezcatlipocas were the sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, lady and lord of the duality, and were the creators of all the other gods, as well as the world and all humanity.The rivalry between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca is also recounted in the legends of Tollan where Tezcatlipoca deceives Quetzalcoatl who was the ruler of the legendary city and forces him into exile. But it is interesting to note that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca both collaborated in the creation of the different creations and that both of them were seen as instrumental in the creation of life. Karl Taube and Mary Miller, specialists in Mesoamerican Studies, write that, “More than anything Tezcatlipoca appears to be the embodiment of change through conflict.” Tezcatlipoca appears on the first page of the Codex Borgia carrying the 20 day signs of the calendar; in the Codex Cospi he is shown as a spirit of darkness, as well as in the Codex Laud and the Dresden Codex. His cult was associated with royalty, and was the subject of the most lengthy and reverent prayers in the rites of kingship, as well as being mentioned frequently in coronation speeches. The temple of Tezcatlipoca was in the Great Precinct of Tenochtitlan.Tezcatlipoca as a jaguar or ocelot, from the Codex Borbonicus.Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca; Codex Borbonicus. A drawing of Blue and Red Tezcatlipocas, two of the deities described in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.A drawing of Blue Tezcatlipoca, one of the deities described in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.Tezcatlipoca in the guise of a turkey or ‘huexólotl’, Codex Borbonicus.Tezcatlipoca’s different names:
As Titlacauan or ‘We his Slaves’ Tezcatlipoca represented a source of universal power, just like his identity as Moyocoyatzin or ‘Maker of Himself’. In this role, the deity did everything that he wanted to as nobody, mortal or immortal, could stop him. Nahua belief in Tezcatlipoca’s potential to destroy and pull down the sky, killing all living things, served to gauge his position as possibly the most powerful of all Aztec deities. Other names such as Nécoc Yaotl, ‘Enemy’, confirm his position as the ‘sower of discord’. Telpochtli or ‘Male Youth’, classed him as patron of the Telpochcalli, school for commoners. Additionally, he was called Yohualli Ehécatl, ‘Night Wind’, Ome Acatl, ‘Two Reed’, and Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque, ‘Possessor of Sky and Earth’. Tezcatlipoca, whose foot has been taken by Tlalteotl, earth goddess; portrayed in the Codex Borbonicus.Tezcatlipoca was a creator. According to the Aztecs, the world as we know it was created at the beginning of an age called the ‘Fifth Sun’. The beginning of the Fifth Sun followed a catastrophic deluge that destroyed all things, both living and inanimate, belonging to the previous age of the ‘Fourth Sun’. After the flood there existed only a vast expanse of water, and in it swam a monstrous being, Tlalteotl, or ‘Earth God’. She was covered in eyes and mouths and hunted throughout the vast ocean for living flesh.Itzpapolotl: The Obsidian Knife Butterfly, from Codex Borbonicus.
This image presents the goddess Itzpapalotl, Obsidian Knife Butterfly. She is a complex deity, a hybrid of a number of human and animal parts, none of which dominates – and the mythology is equally labyrinthine, connecting her with a dazzling, almost hallucinatory range of deities and powers. In one set of myths, she breaks the limbs of the sacred tree in paradise, causing the land to wither. The tree at left probably refers to this myth. In another body of myths, she tries to seduce one of the Mimixcoa, Lesser Cloud Snakes, who builds a fire and throws himself into it to escape from her. She jumps in after him and has a number of adventures in the realm of fire. Finally, the fire gods try to destroy her by burning her fire in an even greater fire, which shatters her into five pieces, each a different color. These fragments became the basic sacrificial knives from which all others descend. Butterflies have three associations that reach deep into the meso- American past. The first two, fertility and resurrection, probably arose from the life cycle of natural butterflies. The third association, fire, involves purification and the fire of dawn, the rebirth of the sky. The essence of Itzpapalotl is blood sacrifice, and her core is the obsidian dagger. The other elements in her makeup intensify rather than moderate this. In the present image, she bears the wings not of a butterfly, but of an eagle, a raptor with strong military associations. Her hands and feet are claws, based on those of jaguars, eagles, and other creatures with built-in knives. The Aztecs believed that women who died in childbirth (a kind of war – were deified and accompanied the sun (an eagle) on its path from zenith to Death’s Kingdom below the western horizon. Itzpapalotl manifests herself here with the face of one of these women. She can act as the nahuali of Xochiquetzal, Precious Flower, patroness of beauty and fertility, or of Tlazolteotl, Eater of Filth, goddess of lust and cleanser of sins, or of Mixcoatl, the Great Cloud Snake, lord of hunters and nahuali of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. In turn, her own nahuali is usually a deer, sometimes with a human head, or with two heads. We have thus far seen several types of interspecies relationships within a single figure: separate nahualis, fused nahualis, and anthropomorphic deities in animal disguises. In Itzpapalotl we see perhaps the maximum of species interaction: numerous human and animal forms inextricably bound together, each lending its different powers to a common end: the creation of the sacrificial knife. This knife, however, is common to the cults of nearly all the Aztec gods and makes her a sort of hub deity, with cabals to all the others. Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are other such figure, through whom all numens pass. In their cases creation and destruction rather than sacrifice form the base of their functions, neither of which works without sacrifice. These functions may seem very different to us, but did not to the Aztecs: the knife of sacrifice could be a butterfly, an instrument of resurrection on individual and cosmic levels, a re-unifier of all life forms.Tezcatlipoca as Chalchiuhtotolin (shown uttering a stream of jewelled water that flows into a jar).In the above image we see Chalchiuhtotolin, the Jewelled Bird, the turkey god. This figure is plainly a disguise for Tezcatilpoa, whose sandalled feet protrude from the bird’s claws, whose face appears inside the bird’s beak, and whose smoking mirror and night-sky headdress appear at the top of the bird’s head. Turkeys are fascinating birds to observe. Their head and necks are naked, full of folds, caruncles, and fissures, displaying many colors from bright primaries through subtle pastel shades. In some instances, the color of the wattles darkens from morning till noon, then lightens as the sun sinks toward the western horizon. They have long fleshy red ornaments over their bills. They stage elaborate courtship rituals including lavish feather displays, and create a type of music with them to accompany their mating songs, songs which suggest gurgling water. Their dances shade into battles, particularly at matin time. To the Aztecs the deified bird presided over ritual self-mortification. The ornament over the beak was emblematic of blood sacrifice and the head and neck skin suggested evisceration. The bird, then, was a walking sacrifice, whose rituals could be copied by humans. In this image the god utters a stream of jewelled water that flows into a jar. Jewelled or precious water is a complex concept in Aztec religion, expressing the economic relations between humans and gods. The term “precious water” was a kenning for the blood humans must shed to keep the gods alive; water is the blood of the gods, given to humans as the basis of their sustenance. This image summarizes the exchange of these two types of water. Generally, Tezcatlipoca manifests himself as a dark and sinister god. We could see the blood letting in the present image as an expression of dreadful malevolence, but the Aztecs certainly did not. In this case his nature is modified by the turkey form he here assumes. In Christian terms, Chalchiutotolin’s powers can be seen as a type of grace. Although Tezcatlipoca could tempt humans into self-destruction, when he assumed his turkey form he could also cleanse them of contamination, absolve them of guilt, and mitigate their otherwise inexorable calendar-based fate – no other god could perform this last function. The harrowing implied in this image, then , is a form of catharsis and liberation rather than a form of torture, presided over by the bird whose head is covered with the jewels of sacrifice, who does a stately and fascinating dance, and who sings a song promising fructifying water and release from pain, songs and dance that humans must copy to achieve these blessings.Tepeyeotli and Tezcatlipoca: Fused Nahualis from Codex BorbonicusAlthough humans and nahualis shared a single soul but lived separate lives, people with magical powers could merge with their nahualis, assuming purely animal form, usually for specific magical purposes. Gods could do the same with their nahualis. The god who took most advantage of this capability was Tezcatlipoca, the sorcerer god. His name means Smoking Mirror, after the obsidian mirrors used in scrying. He could also bear the name The God Over Your Shoulder, the one who whispers crazy things in your ear, urging you to put your hand in a fire or to jump off a cliff as easily as suggesting that you create something magnificent or do something heroic. In our contemporary pseudo-scientific mythology, he approximates the Id, particularly when compared to Quetzalcoatl, who resembles the Super Ego. These gods can act as opposites, but they can also form a nahuali pair. Both are creator gods, and each depends on the other, each supplying something that the other lacks. Both gods share avatars and nahualis: perhaps the most important being Mimixcoatl and Tepeyolotli — in fact, through these nahualis either god can transform himself into the other. At the right of image 4, we see an anthropomorphic Quetzalcoatl. At left is the jaguar god, Tepeyolotli. Jaguars are solitary, often nocturnal hunters, possessing incredible strength and incomprehensible ferocity. They can travel fast and are strong swimmers, seeming to delight in water. The fluidity of their movement suggests stealth and enchantment. They have a wide vocal range, extending from a roar to a growl to a whisper — to a hiss. Tepeyolotli’s name means Heart of the Mountain, a reference to his familiarity with the water the Aztecs thought filled mountains, as it did the chambers in their counterparts in the sky. It also reflects his love of caves and knowledge of the underworld, and his eerie, haunting voice echoed through the valleys and mountains, which the Aztecs took as a particularly powerful omen. A god of darkness, his black spots were dark stars. A jaguar of this type devoured the sun or moon during an eclipse. In image 4, anthropomorphic hands emerge from his fore-paws and a smoking mirror replaces a human foot. This indicates that Tezcatlipoca has merged with his nahuali, Tepeyolotli, and that they both form one animal presence. The two volutes coming from his mouth indicate his decisive but mysterious voice. This is balanced by Quetzalcoatl’s shell trumpet, which speaks of order and obligation. Tezcatlipoca-Tepeyolotli’s voice dominates this match: here Quetzalcoatl assumes the role of secondary figure, a bearer of offerings, but also a figure that Tezcatlipoca-Tepeyolotli cannot do without.A family of slaves, Florentine Codex.A good time to be a slave…
During the thirteen day period of Ce Miquiztli, those families that owned slaves took them out of their bindings, washed, clothed and bestowed gifts upon them. They were looked upon as the children of Tezcatlipoca. If anyone treated a slave badly during this period, it was thought that he or she would be punished, losing all wealth or becoming sick with either leprosy, tumours, gout, scabies or dropsy.
If slaves went missing, became free and prosperous, or a slave owner lost his fortune, it was all down to Tezcatlipoca. It was seemingly simple: humility would help achieve greatness or appease the deity and arrogance could secure his anger and, therefore, one’s downfall. Tezcatlipoca wasn’t anybody’s faithful friend; he was just looking for a reason to wreck and ruin, or create and lavish. That was his nature.Above: Codex Magliabechiano depicting human sacrifices. The first is a sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, the god of Night, the North and Sorcery, a yearly ceremony where a young boy playing music with four flutes was slaughtered at the stairs of a temple outside Tenochtitlan. Human sacrifice and other forms of torture – self-inflicted or otherwise – were common to many parts of the New World, while the Aztecs in particular have been described as using sacrifice as a form of religious practice and a way to induce fear and control to their enemies. ”
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http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/gods/god-of-the-month-tezcatlipoca

” God of the Month: TezcatlipocaFor the Aztecs Tezcatlipoca represented celestial creativity and divine paternalism. He was the soul of the world, the creator of sky and earth, the lord of all things, both powerful and arbitrary. He was also the patron of all men who were rich – nobles, leaders, warriors and merchants – and probably the most ‘important’ god in the Aztec pantheon… (Written/compiled by Julia Flood/Mexicolore)
 Pic 1: Turquoise and obsidian mask, thought to represent Tezcatlipoca, British Museum…However, this didn’t mean that he was always good and loyal to his people. He was willful, in a second giving or taking away riches, terrible illnesses and poverty. The Aztecs had to make sure that they pleased him, regularly praying, holding fasts, rituals, ceremonies and banquets in his honour. They did not want to see Tezcatlipoca in a bad mood!Pic 2: Tezcatlipoca in the Codex Féjérvary-Mayer (Click on image to enlarge)Name of God:Tezcatlipoca, “Smoking Mirror”. 
Parents: The original creator, the dual god Ometeotl “Two God”, also known as Omecihuatl, “Two Lady” and Ometecuhtli “Two Lord”.
Siblings: Ometeotl had four offspring, two of which were different aspects of the same god: Red Tezcatlipoca and Black Tezcatlipoca. The other two were Quetzalcoatl “plumed serpent” and, according to experts, either Tlaloc (rain god) or Huitzilopochtli (Aztec patron and war god). 
Current abode: Luckily for him, Tezcatlipoca can be everywhere at one time, on earth, the heavens and in the underworld. 
Favourite colours: Black and red. The title of “Smoking Mirror” linked Tezcatlipoca to obsidian, a black, volcanic stone whose shiny surface could be used as a mirror. The darkness of the obsidian mirror symbolised the black/dark aspects of his being. Tezcatlipoca’s bellicose [warlike] nature related him to red.

 Pic 3: Tlalteotl portrayed in the Codex Borbonicus (Click on image to enlarge)Tezcatlipoca was a creator… According to the Aztecs, the world as we know it was created at the beginning of an age called the ‘Fifth Sun’. The beginning of the Fifth Sun followed a catastrophic deluge that destroyed all things, both living and inanimate, belonging to the previous age of the ‘Fourth Sun’. After the flood there existed only a vast expanse of water, and in it swam a monstrous being, Tlalteotl, or ‘Earth God’ (Pic 3). She was covered in eyes and mouths and hunted throughout the vast ocean for living flesh.Pic 4: Tezcatlipoca, whose foot has been taken by Tlalteotl, earth goddess. Codex Féjérvary-Mayer (Click on image to enlarge)Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, his brother, were chosen to create the new world of the Fifth Sun, so they turned into snakes and sought Tlalteotl in her watery depths. Upon finding her they tore her in two. However during the battle she bit off one of Tezcatlipoca’s feet (Pic 4). Defeated nonetheless, Tlalteotl had her bottom half thrown upwards by the brothers, thus forming the heavens. Her top half became the earth; her back was the mountains, and rivers ran down her sides. Tlalteotl, earth goddess, was sacrificed for the good of mankind, who lived from her body: the earth and sky. Therefore, it was understood that she must be rewarded with sacrifice: the blood and hearts of men.
 Pic 5: Tezcatlipoca as a jaguar or ocelot in the Codex Borbonicus (Click on image to enlarge)TEZCATLIPOCA FACT FILE
Thirteen day calendar sign: Ce Ocelotl (1 Jaguar). This birth sign brought little but bad luck. Men born under Ce Ocelotl were likely to become war prisoners in foreign lands, womanisers or slaves, whilst women would commit adultery and suffer a life of hardship.Pic 6: Ce Miquiztli (One Death), Codex BorgiaSahagún’s informers also attributed power to Tezcatlipoca in the thirteen day period of Ce Miquiztli (1 Death). This was an auspicious sign to be born under if you were a dutiful and devout subject to Tezcatlipoca. If you weren’t, however, a life of bad luck lay in store. 
The Ce Miquiztli thirteen day period was the perfect time for great leaders, nobles, warriors and merchants to pray that Tezcatlipoca did not take away their fortunes. Commoners who begged humbly to Tezcatlipoca were equally as likely to gain favour from him, and be presented wealth and good health.Pic 7: Obsidian mirror, late postclassic (Aztec), Mexico CityDay sign: Acatl or Reed
Festive Month:Toxcatl or ‘Dryness’. This twenty day ‘month’ took place throughout May and involved a number of rituals that, in the most part, were dedicated to Tezcatlipoca. The ceremonies started once the Ixiptla or ‘live image’ of the god, in the form of a young man, was sacrificed. Over the next few days a statue of Huitzilopochtli, made out of dough, was worshipped and people made special offerings to this Aztec patron in their homes, killing quail in his honour. Later on, young women, holding cane and paper in their hands, went, along with priests, and performed many dances, among which was Tlanaua, in which Huitzilopochtli was symbolically ‘embraced’ by them. To end the twenty days, another young man was killed, this time the live image of Huitzilopochtli, although he was considered to be far less important than Tezcatlipoca’s counterpart.Pic 8: Tezcatlipoca depicted in the Florentine CodexMischievous or mean? Tezcatlipoca was hell-bent on destroying Quetzalcoatl and the Toltecs.
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, being ‘creator’ gods and direct sons of the original deity Ometeotl, constantly struggled against each other for power. Alternating as regents of each of the five Ages, it was Quetzalcoatl who had become the solar deity during the Fifth Sun. In one of many episodes concerning the two brothers’ rivalry, Tezcatlipoca came down from the heavens on a rope made of spider webs, chased and ousted Quetzalcoatl, now an old priest, from his home in Tollan Xicocotitlan (Tula). Using his great art of disguise, Tezcatlipoca targeted the inhabitants of Tollan for their loyalty to his brother. The Florentine Codex recounts the many harmful acts the deity inflicted upon the Toltecs, Huémac (their king) and Quetzalcoatl. In one, Tezcatlipoca, disguised as an old man, tricked Quetzalcoatl into drinking a potion to cure him of his oldness and infirmity. After consuming the liquid, Queztalcoatl realised, too late, that it was teómetl, an alcoholic drink from the Maguey plant, and he became drunk, breaking his religious vows and thus provoking his exile and downfall. 
 Pic 9: The preparation of Tezcatlipoca’s live image or ‘Ixiptla’ shortly before sacrifice. Raúl Cruz, Arqueología Mexicana, no. 34Luxury, women, and god-like status… why not become Tezcatlipoca’s ‘live image’ or Ixiptla? Only one hitch though…
Tezcatlipoca’s Ixiptla was a young attractive man with not a scar on his body. He was chosen to be the god’s own image and representative on earth for the space of a year from amongst the captives caught in Aztec campaigns abroad. His abilities to learn music were remarkable, and during his time as Tezcatlipoca’s ‘living image’ he was constantly accompanied by eight page boys. Together they would roam the streets of Tenochtitlan at night, playing melancholy tunes on the flute. He would attend ceremonies and banquets laid out by nobles, and all those that met him in the street would prostrate themselves before him in reverence.
 Pic 10: The Aztec glyph for ToxcatlSo where was the flaw in this idyllic lifestyle? A year after the Ixiptla was chosen, he was sacrificed to mark the beginning of the spring Toxcatl festivities. Twenty days before this date, he was wed to four maidens representing goddesses. His sacrifice would take place without spectators, in a neglected temple far from the city centre. The Ixiptla slowly climbed to the temple’s top of his own free will, breaking one of his flutes with each step upwards (Pic 11). Once with the priests, he was held, spread eagled, by four of them while their leader cut open his chest and pulled out his heart.
So you see, for us, being Tezcatlipoca’s Ixiptla was not worth all the banquets in the world. Nevertheless, to be chosen for this role was considered by the Aztecs to be a great honour.Pic 11: Toxcatl sacrifice scene, Florentine Codex (Book 1) (Click on image to enlarge)Tezcatlipoca’s different names:
As Titlacauan or ‘We his Slaves’ Tezcatlipoca represented a source of universal power, just like his identity as Moyocoyatzin or ‘Maker of Himself’. In this role, the deity did everything that he wanted to as nobody, mortal or immortal, could stop him. Nahua belief in Tezcatlipoca’s potential to destroy and pull down the sky, killing all living things, served to gauge his position as possibly the most powerful of all Aztec deities. Other names such as Nécoc Yaotl, ‘Enemy’, confirm his position as the ‘sower of discord’. Telpochtli or ‘Male Youth’, classed him as patron of the Telpochcalli, school for commoners. Additionally, he was called Yohualli Ehécatl, ‘Night Wind’, Ome Acatl, ‘Two Reed’, and Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque, ‘Possessor of Sky and Earth’.Pic 12: A family of slaves, Florentine Codex (Click on image to enlarge)A good time to be a slave…
During the thirteen day period of Ce Miquiztli, those families that owned slaves took them out of their bindings, washed, clothed and bestowed gifts upon them. They were looked upon as the children of Tezcatlipoca. If anyone treated a slave badly during this period, it was thought that he or she would be punished, losing all wealth or becoming sick with either leprosy, tumours, gout, scabies or dropsy.
If slaves went missing, became free and prosperous, or a slave owner lost his fortune, it was all down to Tezcatlipoca. It was seemingly simple: humility would help achieve greatness or appease the deity and arrogance could secure his anger and, therefore, one’s downfall. Tezcatlipoca wasn’t anybody’s faithful friend; he was just looking for a reason to wreck and ruin, or create and lavish. That was his nature.Pic 13: Tezcatlipoca in the guise of a turkey or ‘huexólotl’, Codex Borbonicus (Click on image to enlarge)Did Moctezuma really own a zoo?
The last of the Aztec emperors, Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, housed a large collection of live animals, said by some to form a zoo, within the luxurious confines of his palace. Some investigators, however, think that these animals represented ‘nahualtin’, the gods’ animal representatives on earth. According to their theory, the animals would have been religious symbols, not mere amusements for the emperor and his entourage. Tezcatlipoca, himself, was represented in various animal forms, as a coyote, lobster, monkey, turkey and vulture. In his regal form of jaguar, he represented darkness, earth and femininity. At the end of the First Sun or age, of which Tezcatlipoca was regent, Quetzalcoatl defeated him in one of their many battles, by turning him into a jaguar (then considered to be the most powerful animal in Mesoamerica).
 
 Pic 14: The Plumed Coyote (Cóyotl Ináhual) was the patron of feather workers. He is carrying the glyph ‘two reed’ on his chest linking him to Tezcatlipoca. One of his animal forms was the coyote.Tezcatlipoca’s statue:
Tezcatlipoca was always represented as a young god and some important elements of his human form can be found in the statue dedicated to his worship. Made of obsidian, it was adorned with rich robes, earrings of gold and silver, and from its lip hung a crystal with a feather inside it. He wore a gold ornament with smoke curls etched on it, the smoke representing the pleas of suffering people. Another interesting feature was on his left hand: a gold ornament as shiny as a mirror. It was called ‘itlachiaya’ or ‘his lookout’, which meant that he saw all that happened in the world. Tezcatlipoca also symbolised justice, and in this guise he was portrayed sitting down by a cloth with small skulls and shin bones on it. His left hand held a shield and his right hand grasped four spears and a dart that was lifted up as if ready to be thrown forward in punishment.  ”
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” Pic 14: The Plumed Coyote (Cóyotl Ináhual) was the patron of feather workers. He is carrying the glyph ‘two reed’ on his chest linking him to Tezcatlipoca. One of his animal forms was the coyote. ”
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” Ometeotl gave birth to four children, the four Tezcatlipocas, who each preside over one of the four cardinal directions[sup][citation needed][/sup]. Over the West presides the White Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, the god of light, mercy and wind. Over the South presides the Blue Tezcatlipoca,Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. Over the East presides the Red Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, the god of gold, farming and Spring time. And over the North presides the Black Tezcatlipoca, also called simply Tezcatlipoca, the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery and the Earth.[sup][1][/sup]It was these four gods who eventually created all the other gods and the world we know today, but before they could create they had to destroy, for every time they attempted to create something, it would fall into the water beneath them and be eaten by Cipactli, the giant earth crocodile, who swam through the water with mouths at every one of her joints. The four Tezcatlipocas descended the first people who were giants. They created the other gods, the most important of whom were the water gods: Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility and Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of lakes, rivers and oceans, also the goddess of beauty. To give light, they needed a god to become the sun and the Black Tezcatlipoca was chosen, but either because he had lost a leg or because he was god of the night, he only managed to become half a sun. The world continued on in this way for some time, but a sibling rivalry grew between Quetzalcoatl and his brother the mighty sun, who Quetzalcoatl knocked from the sky with a stone club. With no sun, the world was totally black and in his anger, Tezcatlipoca commanded his jaguars to eat all the people.[sup][2][/sup]The gods created a new group of people to inhabit the Earth, this time they were of normal size. Quetzalcoatl became the new sun and as the years passed, the people of the Earth grew less and less civilized and stopped showing proper honor to the gods. As a result, Tezcatlipoca demonstrated his power and authority as god of sorcery and judgment by turning the animalistic people into monkeys. Quetzalcoatl, who had loved the flawed people as they were, became upset and blew all of the monkeys from the face of the Earth with a mighty hurricane. He then stepped down as the sun to create a new people.Tlaloc became the next sun, but Tezcatlipoca seduced and stole his wife Xochiquetzal, the goddess of sex, flowers and corn. Tlaloc then refused to do anything other than wallow in his own grief, so a great drought swept the world. The people’s prayers for rain annoyed the grieving sun and he refused to allow it to rain, but the people continued to beg him. Then, in a fit of rage he answered their prayers with a great downpour of fire. It continued to rain fire until the entire Earth had burned away. The gods then had to construct a whole new Earth from the ashes.The next sun and also Tlaloc’s new wife, was Chalchiuhtlicue. She was very loving towards the people, but Tezcatlipoca was not. Both the people and Chalchiuhtlicue felt his judgment when he told the water goddess that she was not truly loving and only faked kindness out of selfishness to gain the people’s praise. Chalchiuhtlicue was so crushed by these words that she cried blood for the next fifty-two years, causing a horrific flood that drowned everyone on Earth.Quetzalcoatl would not accept the destruction of his people and went to the underworld where he stole their bones from the godMictlantecuhtli. He dipped these bones in his own blood to resurrect his people, who reopened their eyes to a sky illuminated by the current sun, Huitzilopochtli.[sup][1][/sup]The Tzitzimitl, or stars, became jealous of their brighter, more important brother Huitzilopochtli. Their leader, Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the moon, lead them in an assault on the sun and every night they come close to victory when they shine throughout the sky, but are beaten back by the mighty Huitzilopochtli who rules the daytime sky. To aid this all-important god in his continuing war, the Aztecs offer him the nourishment of human sacrifices. They also offer human sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca in fear of his judgment, offer their own blood to Quetzalcoatl, who opposes fatal sacrifices, in thanks of his blood sacrifice for them and give offerings to many other gods for many purposes. Should these sacrifices cease, or should mankind fail to please the gods for any other reason, this fifth sun will go black, the world will be shattered by a catastrophic earthquake, and the Tzitzimitl will slay Huitzilopochtli and all of humanity. “

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