weapon

Macuahuitl of Huitzilopochtli

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

Obsidian-edged club under the war god

The macuahuitl is a historical Mesoamerican wooden sword-club set with obsidian prismatic blades; Spanish witnesses describe the wounds. Huitzilopochtli is the Mexica patron of war and the sun. A specific named "Macuahuitl of Huitzilopochtli" is a modern convenience: warriors and the god share the weapon-type in art and in the Florentine Codex's war material. Do not invent a unique relic stored in the Templo Mayor with a forging myth. The Coatepec cycle gives him the xiuhcoatl as the famous divine weapon; the macuahuitl is the human fighter's analog under his patronage.

Primary Sources

“Mexica warriors fought with the macuahuitl, wood set with obsidian edges, under the patronage of Huitzilopochtli, whose own mythic weapon at Coatepec is the fire serpent.”
Florentine Codex (war and Huitzilopochtli) / Spanish notices of the macuahuitl(c. 16th century CE)

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