Huitzilopochtli

see also: Etymology of Huitzilopochtli

Huitzilopochtli is an Aztec divinity of origin truly , unlike the other divinities of the Pantheon mexica who came to enrich to them Mythologie. It represents the tribal god of the War and of the Sun, guard of the Aztec tribe and which is not represented in civilizations méso-American are former or comtemporaines Mexicas. It constitutes, with Tlaloc, the most important divinity of the empire and has in the capital Tenochtitlan a gigantic temple, the Templo Mayor (which it divides there still with equality with Tlaloc). Its representation is rather easily recognizable. It has on the body of the yellow and blue bands, the feathers of hummingbird on the left leg and a stick in the shape of snake named atlatl . Its name indicates that it is associated with all the rites of the war and death. Indeed, the hummingbirds symbolize the hearts of the warriors died in the combat and who accompany the Sun in his daily race.

Etymology

The name Nahuatl Huitzilopochtli comes from uitzilin , “hummingbird (or Colibri)”, and of opochtli , “left”, which wants to say “warlike ressuscity métaphoriquement”, because the Aztec ones believed that the warrior transformed himself with his death into hummingbird and that the left was the direction of the south, stay of deaths.

According to the Aztec ones, the birth of Huitzilopochtli would have occurred as follows: Coatlicue, old goddess of the Earth, “that which has a skirt of snakes”, which is the mother of Coyolxauhqui, night Darkness, and of the four hundred Southerners, stellar divinities. It finds on its way a ball of feathers which it puts in its blouse. A little later she realizes that she is pregnant. His/her children reproach him this late pregnancy and meditate to kill her. But Huitzilopochtli leaves very armed with the belly his/her mother and massacres her brothers and sisters as the sun drives out stars.

The origin of this worship intermingles myth and history, a little as for the god Quetzalcoatl. It is impossible to know if Huitzilopochtli is a hero déifié later or regarded of entry as a god. Certain late legends give like birthplace to the god the town of Coatepec . During the migration of the Aztec towards the south, 11th century XIV {{E}} century, four priests carrying the statue of Huitzilopochtli preceded the people. According to the Aztèques their god addresses himself to them in these terms:

“ I will lead you where you must go. I will seem to you a white eagle; and where that you combine will sing. You will only go where you will see me, and when you arrive in a place where it will seem to me good that you remain, I will go down from the sky and you will see me with ground. You will build my temple, my bed of grass in this place where I will have come to rest me, ready to set out again and to fly away . ” This text in particular is at the origin of the creation of the capital of Aztec, Tenochtitlan.

With the reform of Tlacaelel at the 15th century, the worship of Huitzilopochtli becomes paramount and the need for nourishing the god, in order to prevent that he does not die, involves the development of the human sacrifices on a scale hitherto unequalled in Mésoamérique.

References

the broken destiny of the Aztec empire by Serge Gruzinski, Discovered Gallimard.

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