![]() Tlaloc’s new wife, the kindly water goddess Chalchiuhlicue, became the Sun of Water. The only people who survived this sun became birds, who could go into the air to escape the burning earth. The gods made a new world from the ashes, ending the Sun of Rain. When the people of this world begged him to send rain, Tlaloc grew so annoyed that he sent a rain of fire to kill them all. Tezcatlipoca stole Tlaloc’s wife and the rain god was so distraught that he caused a drought. This was the Sun of the Wind.Īfter this Tlaloc, the god of rain, became the sun. He turned these people into monkeys, which Quetzalcoatl blew from the earth with a great wind. He was overthrown by Tezcatlipoca, who saw that the people who lived under Quetzalcoatl were animalistic and uncivilized. Quetzalcoatl then became the sun himself. The first age, called the Sun of the Earth or the Jaguar Sun, was destroyed. Tezcatlipoca turned himself into a jaguar and ripped the world apart. ![]() Because he was missing a leg, however, he could only be half a sun, so Quetzalcoatl knocked him out of the sky with a stone club. When the world was created, Tezcatlipoca made himself the sun. This is known as the legend of the Five Suns. In a story that seems to have been more widespread, however, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl were rivals. Tezcatlipoca used his foot as bait, so he can sometimes be identified in art because his missing foot is replaced with smoking obsidian, a bone, or a snake. The brothers needed to capture Cipactli to make her body into the land. In it lived a monstrous reptile known as Cipactli. In one version of the creation story, the two worked together to create the world.īefore they created the land, all that existed was the sea. He was associated with the color black, while Quetzalcoatl was the White Tezcatlipoca. Sometimes, these brothers were described as the four Tezcatlipocas, distinguished by color. They were two of the four sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the lord and lady who had created all the gods and the first humans. He was usually described as the brother of one of the greatest creation gods, Quetzalcoatl. Many different myths existed to explain this, however. Most often, the god is associated with the creation of the world. Tezcatlipoca served many different functions, so he was depicted in similarly diverse ways. Often, however, it is simply that these images may be difficult to identify. This is not because of any supernatural power, but because he is so rarely seen in surviving images from the Aztec culture. Tezcatlipoca is sometimes described as an invisible god. So who was Tezcatlipoca and why is his imagery so hard to pinpoint? The answer may lie outside the Aztec culture, among their Mesoamerican neighbors. His missing leg often identifies him, but other images remain elusive. According to Aztec cosmology, he had been responsible for destroying the world four times before the current age of mankind began.ĭespite all this, however, he is rarely seen in art. Sometimes he was shown as a partner in creation, but more often he was shown as a god of judgment and destruction. He was involved in the earth’s creation, commanded jaguars, oversaw sacrifices, and presided over the night sky. ![]() In the Aztec religion, Tezcatlipoca was an important god.
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