HUITZILOPOCHTLI

also spelled Uitzilopochtli (from Nahuatl huitzilin, hummingbird, and opochtli, left) Aztec sun and war god. Because the Aztecs believed dead warriors were reincarnated as hummingbirds and because the south was 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 nahual, 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 Huitznua (Four Hundred Southerners), stars of the southern sky, and his sister Coyolxauhqui, a moon goddess, decided to kill him, but he exterminated them with his weapon, the xiuhcatl (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, Tenochtitln, 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 hummingbird 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 the 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, warriors and auianime (courtesans) danced night after night on the plaza in front of the god's temple. War prisoners or slaves were 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 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 (corn), 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 also believed that the sun god needed daily nourishment (tlaxcaltiliztli)that is, human blood and heartsand that they, as 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 Quetzalcatl Totec Tlamacazqui (Feathered Serpent, Priest of Our Lord), was, with the god Tlaloc's high priest, one of the two heads of the Aztec clergy.