Nahua/Aztec
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.
Central Mexico
1300 BCE - 1521 CE
12 gods and goddesses
A complex pantheon centered on duality, sacrifice, and the sun, demanding blood sacrifice to sustain the cosmos.
The Feathered Serpent, a creator deity who contributed to the creation of mankind. Patron of priests and inventor of books and the calendar.
The patron god of the Aztecs and Tenochtitlan. A solar warrior who requires blood sacrifice to battle the infinite night and keep the sun moving.
The omnipotent and capricious god of the night sky, ancestral memory, and time. Rival to Quetzalcoatl and tester of humanity.
Earth mother goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli. Depicted wearing a skirt of writhing serpents and a necklace of human hearts and hands.
The goddess of beauty, love, flowers, and female sexuality. Xochiquetzal was patron of artisans, weavers, and pregnant women, and dwelt in the paradise of Tamoanchan.
The goddess of purification, sin, and confession. Tlazolteotl consumed the moral filth of humanity, absorbing confessed sins and granting absolution before death.
The goddess of the maguey plant and its fermented drink pulque. Mayahuel is depicted with 400 breasts to nurse her 400 children, the Centzon Totochtin (400 Rabbits) of intoxication.
The sun god of the Fifth Sun (the current world age). Tonatiuh demanded human hearts and blood to fuel his daily journey across the sky, driving the Aztec system of ritual sacrifice.
The dog-headed god of lightning, twins, and deformities. Xolotl was the twin brother of Quetzalcoatl and guided the dead through the underworld. His name is preserved in the axolotl salamander.
The moon goddess, daughter of Coatlicue and leader of the 400 stars. Coyolxauhqui was slain and dismembered by her brother Huitzilopochtli at his miraculous birth, her defeat reenacted at every sunrise.
The god of fire, time, and the calendar. Xiuhtecuhtli was the oldest deity, dwelling at the center of the universe in the hearth fire that connected all realms. He presided over the New Fire ceremony every 52 years.
The monstrous earth deity from whose dismembered body the world was created. Tlaltecuhtli devours the dead and demands blood in return for crops, embodying the earth's duality as giver and taker of life.
The Aztec creation myth describing four previous worlds that were destroyed, and the creation of the current fifth world by the sacrifice of the gods.
Coatlicue, the earth mother, becomes mysteriously pregnant after a ball of feathers falls upon her. Her daughter Coyolxauhqui leads the Centzon Huitznahua in an attack, but Huitzilopochtli emerges fully armed to defend his mother.
Through cunning tricks and dark sorcery, Tezcatlipoca causes the righteous priest-king Quetzalcoatl to break his sacred vows, leading to his shame, exile, and promise to return.
The perilous four-year journey of the soul through the nine levels of the Aztec underworld, facing wind of obsidian knives, crushing mountains, and the final crossing to rest before Mictlantecuhtli.
After the Fifth Sun is created, Quetzalcoatl descends to Mictlan, the underworld, to steal the bones of previous humans and create a new humanity, proving the gods' willingness to sacrifice for their creation.
Xipe Totec, the Flayed Lord, skins himself alive so that maize and other plants can grow from the earth, establishing the connection between death, renewal, and agricultural fertility.
The beautiful flower goddess Xochiquetzal dwells in paradise but is tempted to eat forbidden fruit. Her transgression brings both suffering and certain arts to humanity.
The goddess Mayahuel discovers the maguey plant and its intoxicating drink pulque. Her four hundred rabbit children, the Centzon Totochtin, become the gods of drunkenness, each representing a different degree of intoxication.