The Aztec world (whose real name should be "Mexica") adopted many of its gods from previous cultures. The deities that we will see in this list often belong not only to this world, but also to many other cultures that share attributes and names.
As everything, we must begin with the origin of such gods. In the beginning there was Ometéotl (the one who created himself). A sexually ambiguous god who gave birth to the first creator couple: Ometecutli and Omecihuatl. This couple generated the four Tezcatlipocas, which are the following: Xipe Totec (the red one), Yaotl (black), Quetzalcoatl (white) and Hutzilopochtli (blue).
The four Tezcatlipocas were in charge of generating the following gods. The number of these is very great and, now, we cannot know their quantity since the Spaniards destroyed an endless number of codices where such a record was written.
The interpretations of the Mexica genealogy are sometimes difficult to understand according to modern western considerations. It is not difficult to find goddesses who are mothers of their own grandmothers. So we should not try to find some logic in such births and gestations.
So let's start with our list.
1. Ometéotl. This deity has the faculty of being generator-receiver, masculine and feminine. She was owner-owner of all that exists. As we can see, she enjoyed a sexual duality that allowed her to be the giver of the next line of gods. He is the first god, the one who created himself.
He is the omnipresent god who is close to all things and whose things are close to him. At once he has the qualities of invisibility like the night and intangibility, like the wind. He is frequently mentioned as the giver of life.
Miguel León Portilla, an eminent Mexican scholar, considered that the upper classes of the Mexica had access to a knowledge different from the rest of the people. According to León Portilla, the Mexica kings knew that Ometéotl unfolded his personality to give form to the first creative couple and to the four Tezcatlipocas already mentioned. That is to say, that this god was still himself, but in a different form. This indicates the belief in a monotheism in the high Mexica culture.
2. Mictlantecutli, the lord of the underworld. He ruled the mictlan, the sacred place where the souls go when they die. We are here before the origin of the celebration of the Day of the Dead, so well known in Mexico, but with a notorious difference, as we will see later on.
We have to clarify that the souls of the dead do not go to a certain place according to their behavior in life. They go to a certain place according to the death they had. Here there are two destinations, the place of the dead and the place of the rain god. In the case of the mictlan, only those souls that died a natural death or by illness will go there.
Reaching the mictlan was not easy, the path was full of very hard obstacles. It is said that this path was traveled for four years. That is why the relatives of the deceased made offerings in colorful altars to accompany and give tools to the soul of the deceased so that it could use them to reach the mictlan, where the true death would take place.
3. Mictecacíhuatl. Tradition has it that this goddess died at birth and for this reason she was given the title of "lady of death". She is the one who watches over the bones of the dead. She is also known as "she who cuts the *mecate*" (rope, rope, alluding to the umbilical cord).
Some legends in Oaxaca attribute to her the power to "entangle" or hunt men, usually drunk or womanizers. When they walk late at night, they seduce them and guide them through muddy and thorny paths, causing them to get hurt. Then they throw themselves into a ravine, falling where there are cactus with thorns. Some die and others survive, but remember nothing of what happened.
4. Ometecutli and Omecíhuatl. Let us remember that this couple was the first divine creation of Ometéotl, that is why they receive the following names, the first was called "lord two" while the second was called "lady two". They were the energies that formed the creative duality of the Mexica. Ometecutli represented the masculine essence and Omecíhuatl, the feminine.
Both lived at the top of the visible and invisible spaces, in the heights of the cosmos. With their fiery staffs they created the gods, giving them life at the same time. We should not see these two as separate entities, the Mexica actually considered them as one god, a dual god, so to speak. The famous Aztec calendar has at its center the face of the sun, Tonatiuh, who is actually this duality we are talking about, god of life, love and generation.
Another graphic presence is found in the Mexican national coat of arms. Ometecutli was considered the sun (represented by the eagle), while Omecíhuatl was considered the moon (represented by the serpent). The eagle and the serpent were the symbol with which the creation of Tenochtitlan began. That, at the same time (feathers of the eagle that dress the serpent), represent the god Quetzalcoatl (the one who granted knowledge to men).
5. Xipe Tótec. Our flayed lord. We are in front of a bloodthirsty god who also had blood offerings. This should not scare us. In principle it could be considered a tradition that, if we do not understand it well, could seem wild, but if we investigate the motives of this one, we will see that it has in fact reasons to give life.
First we must know that this god offered his skin and eyes to feed human beings. Hence the name "our flayed lord". He is therefore the god of spring and fertility. The Mexica attributed this power to him since he is a symbol of discovering the cob when the leaves that cover it are peeled.
The Mexica took prisoners and skinned them to cover the statue of this deity with their skin, thus giving it life. The spilled blood was watered in the fields to fertilize it, since they considered that the blood was the semen of the gods that should fertilize the goddess mother earth.
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