Aztec Pantheonweapon
Xiuhcoatl
- Fire Serpent
- Solar Flame
- Enemy Destruction
The turquoise fire serpent weapon of Huitzilopochtli and Xiuhtecuhtli, a living bolt of flame that burns enemies of the sun and the Mexica.
About Xiuhcoatl
Fire-serpent weapon at Coatepec
Florentine Codex Book 3: on Coatepec, Coatlicue conceives Huitzilopochtli; he is born armed and slays his sister Coyolxauhqui with the xiuhcoatl, the turquoise fire serpent, then drives off the Centzon Huitznahua. In Mexica art the xiuhcoatl is a weapon (atlatl, fire-dart, turquoise-mosaic snake of drought-sun) carried by Huitzilopochtli and tied to Xiuhtecuhtli's fire. A living serpent-form of that same mythic fire appears among creatures; the two are not rivals. One is the god's thrown weapon at birth, the other the serpent-body of celestial fire. Sahagún's Book 3 is colonial Nahuatl and Spanish; Templo Mayor sculpture is the Mexica-period image of the killing.
Origin
Wielded at Huitzilopochtli's birth when he slew Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Florentine Codex, Book 3 (Huitzilopochtli at Coatepec)
About this entry
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.
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