Cult of Gods

Aztec (Mexica)

Central Mexico, c. 1300-1521 CE.

Most of what we know comes through Spanish friars, above all Bernardino de Sahagún's Florentine Codex, compiled with Nahua elders and scribes from the 1540s on. Pre-conquest painted books survive in tiny numbers. Names and roles vary between city-states, and the friars' filter is a real limit.

Codex Borbonicus, p. 9, a Mexica calendar book painted around the time of the Spanish conquest.
Codex Borbonicus, p. 9, a Mexica calendar book painted around the time of the Spanish conquest.

Family graph

Parent lines run downward, partners are joined by a thicker line. Select a deity to trace its ancestry.

Choose a deity to see where it comes from. Dashed lines are links the sources describe that are not parent and child.

OmeteotlTezcatlipocaQuetzalcoatlCoatlicueTlalocChalchiuhtlicueMictlantecuhtliMictecacihuatlXipe TotecXochiquetzalHuitzilopochtliCoyolxauhquiTonatiuh

The deities

Ometeotlduality, the creative pairTezcatlipocanight, fate, sorceryQuetzalcoatlwind, learning, priesthoodHuitzilopochtlisun, war, Tenochtitlan's patronCoatlicueearth, mother of HuitzilopochtliCoyolxauhquithe moon (by interpretation)Tlalocrain, mountains, fertilityChalchiuhtlicuerivers, lakes, childbirthTonatiuhthe fifth sunMictlantecuhtlithe dead, Mictlan, the underworldMictecacihuatlthe deadXipe Totecspring renewal, goldsmithsXochiquetzalflowers, love, craft

Today

Nahuatl-speaking people, more than a million, live in Mexico today. Most are Catholic; some communities keep forms of the older practices and some revivalists work to reconstruct them. The Mexica state religion ended with the Spanish conquest of 1521.

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.NorsePapyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.EgyptianA chaos monster and a sun god, drawn by L. Gruner for A. H. Layard's Monuments of Nineveh.MesopotamianVishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.Hindu

Sources used