#huitzilopochtli

[thirteene42]

okay ADDING ONTO THIS because I've been possessed

Coyolxauhqui is similarly such an interesting character to look into. Yes, she is selfish, but let's reframe some things.

She attacks her mother because she is having another child. I've seen a lot of different interpretations of why, but I like to believe it came from a kind of jealousy. Not just because she felt hurt her mother needed another child when she has OVER 400 (jeez coatlicue how the fuck), but because she knows a few things about this child already.

1) this child will be a warrior (born from a ball of hummingbird feathers, and hummingbirds are symbols or warriors)

2) this child is likely to be a boy (she had like 400 brothers)

both of these things leads her to understand that if this child exists, she, and likely her brothers, but more importantly she, will fade into obscurity. A warrior son of the earth born miraculously of hummingbird feathers? she stands no chance.

So she tells her mother 'you cannot have this child. you and I will be nothing compared to him. think of me, and of you. think of the way we will be second to him'

and while coatlicue is not a good woman, I like to believe she was a good mother, and she says 'no. I don't need to be great. having a great son will be enough'

and coyolxauhqui understands that she DOES need to be great, and she needs to do something before she is forgotten entirely.

So, maybe with the same violence she gets from her mother, who was always adorned with human hearts, she attacks Coatlicue.

And in her last moments before she loses to Huitzilopotchli, she realizes it didn't mean anything anyway- she is going to be second to him forever.

and yet, I think of her a lot. She was the first introduction into Aztec culture and mythology I had. I saw the Coyolxauhqui stone and was transfixed.

While I dislike them, i understand why Persephone and Medusa retellings exist. But I don't understand why no one has sympathized much with Coyolxauhqui

I'm going to be not normal about huitzilopotchli on the not being normal about things website

because he was BORN to protect his mother from his own sister. his birth is an act of protection, and he fails to save BOTH of them, his mother becoming a two-headed snake monster, his sister leading an army against him, made of his own brothers and sisters. when he has to kill them all, they become the stars in the sky, and his sister the moon, and every night he has to fight their angry, dead bodies through the night sky, led by a dog he doesn't know is the closest thing he has anymore to a brother. and one day he will fail and the world knows he's going to lose this fight one day and when it does they will all die and he just has to live with that. they have to love him anyway, give their own flesh and blood anyway

like he leads the people of mexico to lake texcoco. he clearly loves the people. not as much as quetzalcoatl but he does

like who's gonna write the book??? do i have to do it??? will it be me????

[rennebright]

😝 by Ura [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[bastrod]

Founding of an Empire

[toastedclownery]

Shrike as Huitzilopochtli... 2!

Ah shit. Here we go again. This time with some more facts (and some corrections lol) 

Huitzilopochtli, “Hummingbird of the South”, is the patron god of the Mexica (historically called the Aztecs). He was the patron of the capital city of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). He was the god of warfare and the sun, as the sun of the fifth and current era. 

We'll start with the iconography, and then possible themes

—

Huitzi is nearly always represented with quetzal feathers (quetzalli) on his headdress, a lot of gods in the pantheon have them (In my last post I called them hummingbird feathers but those are the ones on his back. Whoops!). These appear in Shrike’s design as the spikes of his tentacles.

Huitzilopochtli is most known for having a black mask around his eyes. Shrike has dark circles around his eyes. His namesake, shrike, is a bird also known for having a mask of black feathers around its eyes. Additionally, when he’s dressed up as Bandito in ep2, he puts on a dark antiface. And as a potential extra layer, this is to imitate the black masks that raccoons also have.

Huitzi is called the "hummingbird of the south", and so he wears the head of a hummingbird on top of his own. The Aztecs also believed that warriors who died in battle got reincarnated into hummingbirds, so that’s another connection to warfare. Shrike has a beak-like mouth that has visibly been getting longer throughout the episodes.

The god has a pectoral circle made of seashell on his chest (anahuatl). I’m not entirely sure if the collar of his jacket is supposed to be a reference to this. In his reference sheet it’s a circle, various animators draw it as a circle, but Zeurel never draws it as a circle when animating, so it might be a stretch.

Huitzi commonly carries Xiuhcoatl, the “Turquoise Serpent”, as a weapon, mentioned in the story of his birth in the Florentine Codex. When dressed up as Bandito, Shrike grabs one of the floppy leaves of the plant, resembling the shape of the snake.

But Xiuhcoatl can also be found on the pattern on the sides of his shoes!

Also mentioned in his origin story in Florentine, he has a xiuh atlatl, a “turquoise dart thrower” (although it can also be associated with Xiuhcoatl as the same thing).

That would be his gun. It’s not the only time that guns are gonna be compared to dart throwers.

—

Huitzilopochtli was the sun of the fifth era to the Mexica. This sun has the symbol “Nahui Ollin”, which means “4 Movement”. The Ollin is one of the Aztec calendar day signs, it means “movement” or “earthquake”, and it is represented as two intertwined lines. Here it is represented in Codex Borgia.

Now here’s what I’m thinking

This might just be where Shrike’s pinky quirk comes from! Shrike was the one to tell Beebs about pinky promises, and they seem to be very important to him. So much so that he subconsciously keeps his pinkies up whenever he’s holding his guns or his phone.

The reason why each era has a name and symbol attributed to it is because they’re named after the way it would end. This fifth era is named after earthquakes because the Aztecs believed that this world would end with strong tremors, the sun would lose its perpetual fight against darkness, and the stars would come down to earth in the form of creatures called Tzitzimime to kill all of humanity.

This god represents the sun. The sun in the solar system. Earth’s sun, our sun, the Terrans’ sun. Yeah, that sun.

The sun’s job was to illuminate the world for us humans, and to not let it fall into darkness. This could be why Shrike has a fear of the dark, and has such appreciation for Terrans!

Shrike, as the protagonist of the show, is Huitzilopochtli, the god most important to the Mexica. Zeurel currently doesn't have a specific nationality for him, he's generally hispanic, but the crew's Spanish consultant is Mexican, and so is Sr. Pelo, the voice of Bandito. In Bandito's show there are curtains with the colors of the Mexican flag and a prickly pear cactus, which appears in the coat of arms in the middle of said flag.

This symbol actually comes from the legend on the origins of Tenochtitlan! Huitzilopochtli told the Mexica to leave Aztlan, the place where they were originally from (that's where the term "Aztec" comes from). He told them to build a new city where they found an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus, devouring a snake. That was in the middle of lake Texcoco, where Mexico City still stands on today.

I'd say Shrike is the one who has the strongest connection to his past life memories because he feels a strong connection to Mexican culture and language (if he spoke ancient Nahuatl it'd be too obvious so they made him speak Mexican Spanish instead). He also has the habit of calling everyone “amigo”, even to the people he dislikes or doesn’t seem to know at all.

Maybe it’s because he did know them. A long time ago?

[mythologyolympics]

Mythology Olympics tournament round 1

Propaganda!

Huītzilōpōchtli is the solar and war deity of sacrifice in Aztec religion. He was also the patron god of the Aztecs and their capital city, Tenochtitlan. He wielded Xiuhcoatl, the fire serpent, as a weapon, thus also associating Huitzilopochtli with fire. One origin story for him has him as one of four sibings, children of the creator couple Tōnacātēcuhtli and Tōnacācihuātl. His mother and father instructed him and his brother Quetzalcoatl to bring order to the world. Together, Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl created fire, the first male and female humans, the Earth, and the Sun.

Boitatá is the Brazilian equivalent of the will-o'-the-wisp. The name comes from the Old Tupi language and means "fiery serpent" (mboî tatá). Its great fiery eyes leave it almost blind by day, but by night, it can see everything. According to legend, Boi-tatá was a big serpent which survived a great deluge. A "boiguaçu" (cave anaconda) left its cave after the deluge and, in the dark, went through the fields preying on the animals and corpses, eating exclusively its favourite morsel, the eyes. The collected light from the eaten eyes gave boitatá its fiery gaze. [image credit]

[rubynrut]

Ohhh look a hummingbird ☺💕

OH NO HE HAS A KNIFE!!!

[thedeceasedgod]

I put way too much effort into an Aztec mythology meets snapcube sonic dub shitpost

I blame this post for inspiration

[voyagercocuyo3]

Happy winter solstice, everyone ☀️

We can't forget Huitzilipotchli and the Panquetzaliztli today!

I hope you like ❤️

[fideos-de-verdura]

The Sun killing the Moon

[illustratus]

[canisvesperus]

It only took me an hour but I finally found that meme of Huitzilopochtli smoking a giant blunt

[dingostrash]

I like her,,

[rennebright]

スケスケな家💕 by Ura [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[bastrod]

POV you're about to become the moon becouse a feathered ball hit your mom

[toastedclownery]

How many times do we have to go through this?!?!

[sunnybunny33]

Animal Crossing hermanos