HUITZILOPOCHTLI, Hummingbird of the South

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YE GODS! THE AZTEC ICONS AZTEC ICON #7 – HUITZILOPOCHTLI, Hummingbird of the South YE GODS! THE AZTEC ICONS HUITZILOPOCHTLI HUITZILOPOCHTLI (Hummingbird of the South) {hwee-tsil-o-poch-tłee} is the god of war, power, force, action, accomplishment, and nobility, as well as patron of the city of Tenochtitlan and god of the South. As patron god of the Mexica (Aztecs), he was credited with both their victories and defeats on the battlefield, requiring sacrificial human hearts in either case. He is sometimes called the Blue Tezcatlipoca, the sun at mid- day, and as Lord of the warriors of the day, the Eagle Knights, he wields the Xiuhcoatl (Fire Snake) with which he slew his 400 brothers. Son of Coatlicue (Snake Skirt), he led the Mexica people on their migration from Chicomoztoc (Seven Caves) into the Valley of Anahuac. SOURCES Understandably, this patron war-god of the Mexica did not often appear in the codices from other cultural traditions. I chose to model the icon on the second Borbonicus example, which occurs as a tiny image in a later section of the codex, (hence the blurred enlargement), probably by a different artist. The other two images of the god offer interesting iconographic detail. BORBONICUS MAGLIABECHIANO The models below are listed in the sequence of the pictorial legend of the migration (from Fray Diego Duran’s “History of the Indies of New Spain”), running counter-clockwise from upper left. The cacao tree with bird at the top symbolizes the South, again from Fejervary-Mayer, and the pedestal comes from “para-Aubin.” NUTTALL HISTORIA TOLTECA- NUTTALL STONE OF CHICHIMECA COYOLXAUQUI NUTTALL FEJERVARY-MAYER BORGIA NUTTALL NUTTALL IXTLILXOCHITL MAGLIABECHIANO .

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