Tōnacātēcuhtli

Template:Short description Template:Wikidata imageTemplate:Compare image with Wikidata In Aztec mythology, Tonacatecuhtli was a creator and fertility god, worshipped for populating the earth and making it fruitful. Most Colonial-era manuscripts equate him with Ōmetēcuhtli. His consort was Tonacacihuatl.

Tonacateuchtli is depicted in the Codex Borgia.

File:Tonacacihuatl Tonacatecuhtli Fejevary-Mayer.jpg

Tonacacíhuatl and Tonacatecuhtli as depicted in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.

Etymology

The god's name is a compound of two Nahuatl words: and . While is generally translated "lord", presents several possible interpretations. Some read this root as (without the long 'o'), consisting of , meaning "human flesh" or "food", with the possessive prefix ("our"). By this etymology, would mean "Lord of Our Food" or "Lord of Our Flesh", most commonly rendered "Lord of Our Sustenance." The word simply means "abundance", giving the alternate reading "Lord of Abundance".

Origin and role

Tōnacātēcuhtli was the Central Mexican form of the aged creator god common to Mesoamerican religion. According to the Codex Ríos, the History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, the Histoyre du Mechique, and the Florentine Codex, Tōnacātēcuhtli and his consort Tōnacācihuātl resided in "in Tōnacātēuctli īchān" ("the mansion of the Lord of Abundance"), also known as Omeyocan, the 13th, highest heaven, from which human souls descended to earth. Tōnacātēcuhtli is associated with procreation, appearing in pre-Columbian art near copulating humans. In the Florentine Codex, Sahagún relates that Aztec midwives would tell newborns after bathing them, "You were created in the place of duality, the place above the nine heavens. Your father and mother—Ōmetēuctli and Ōmecihuātl, the heavenly woman—formed you, created you."

In terms of the Aztec calendar, Tōnacātēcuhtli was the patron of Cipactli, the first of the twenty days in a month, as well as presiding over the trecena (thirteen-day ritual week) named 1 Cipactli (itself the first of the trecenas).

In the Codex Chimalpopoca, Tōnacātēcuhtli and Tōnacācihuātl are listed as one of several pairs of gods to whom Quetzalcoatl prays.

He turned the goddess Quaxolotl into a dog when she offended him.

References

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