Huitzilopochtli was the god of war in the central Mexican pantheon, especially revered by the Aztecs as their patron god.
Huitzilopochtli, whose name literally means “southern hummingbird” or “hummingbird on the left,” was the supreme god of the Aztecs, associated with sun, fire, and ruling lineage. According to the mythology of the central Mexican valley, Huitzilopochtli’s mother, Coatlicue, was miraculously impregnated by a ball of down that she tucked into her shirt while cleaning. Her children, furious with her perceived dishonor, proceeded to murder her, but at the moment of her death she gave birth to the fully armed Huitzilopochtli, who avenged his mother’s death by killing his 400 siblings.
According to Aztec myth, Huitzilopochtli led his people on the journey from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan. Modern historians speculate that the special Aztec cult of Huitzilopochtli may have originated with a living ruler bearing this name who was deified by his followers.
Huitzilopochtli’s main shrine at the time of the Spanish arrival had one of the most prominent locations in Tenochtitlan, the so-called great pyramid that dominated the temple precinct of the Aztec capital, surmounted by twin temples, one to Huitzilopochtli, the other to Tlaloc. This temple was the site of an annual festival commemorating Huitzilopochtli’s (re)birth as a god, apparently including large numbers of ritual sacrifices. Native chronicles report that some 80,000 captives were sacrificed at the dedication ceremonies for this structure. Even if these figures were exaggerated, they give an idea of the impressive scale of Mesoamerican sacrificial rites. Aztecs believed that their patron was nourished by blood sacrifice, both from self-mutilation and from the many captives obtained for sacrifice in the so-called FLOWERY WARS. The cult of Huitzilopochtli was thus one major reason behind the Aztecs’ territorial expansion, allowing them to obtain the victims required to satisfy their patron deity. This expansion caused the Aztecs to be both feared and hated by their neighbors, a situation that must have facilitated the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century because it provided the latter with ample allies against the dominant political power in Mexico at the time of their arrival.
Further reading: Geoffrey W. Conrad and Arthur A. Demarest, Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Nigel Davies, The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987); Mary Miller and Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (London: Thames & Hudson, 1993).
—Marie A. Kelleher
World History
