Tezcatlipoca: The Lord of Smoking Mirrors

Tezcatlipoca is the Aztec god of sorcery. He is an all-knowing spirit that sees everything in his obsidian mirror. The name “Tezcatlipoca” means “smoking mirror.” This spirit of magic and chaos is a dangerous figure. 

Description:

Other names: Yaomauitl, The dreaded one, Ome Acatl, Neco Yaotl.

Element: Water

Favored people: Shamans, magicians, witches, sorcerers, occultists, mirror gazers.

Time: Night, especially midnight

Attribute: Obsidian mirror

Consort: Xochiquetzal

Material: Obsidian, black volcanic glass used to create ritual knives and magic mirrors.

Creature: Jaguar, his nahual

Animal: Bird

Flower: Morning glories

Sacred sites: He lives within the Earth’s core in a mirrored realm inhabited by jaguars. He also loves the temescal, the traditional Aztec bathhouse.

Appearance:

Tezcatlipoca may be seen limping with a missing foot.  He is a shape-shifter and takes forms like, coyote, jaguar, monkey, owl, and skunk. He is depicted as a man carrying a shield with balls of either feathers or cotton and holding arrows or a spear in his right hand. Surrounding a mirror is a fan of feathers.

As a ruler of the night, he is seen with a black and yellow stripe painted across his face, with a star on his forehead. A jaguar’s skin hangs around his hips with the body of a dead bird on his ear. Tezcatlipoca also has a snake’s head implanted into one of his nostrils, and he carries the amputated arm of a woman who died during childbirth as his scepter.

Forms:

This god has different aspects: as Tezcatlipoca Telpochtli, he stands for eternal youth; as Tezcatlipoca Yaotl (“Enemy”) he is the patron of the warrior. Other names include Necocyaotl (“Enemy of Both Sides”), Yohualli Ehecatl (Night Wind), Tloque Nahuaque (“Lord of the Near and Far”), Ome acatl (“Two Reed”) and Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque (“Possessor of the Sky and Earth”).

 

Abilities:

• He can foretell the future and spy on others with the use of his obsidian mirror. He is also known as the trickster who lured Quetzalcoatl into drinking and indulging in all manner of vices. Tezcatlipoca showed him how weak and pathetic Quetzalcoatl had become with his obsidian mirror. This made Quetzalcoatl leave the world in shame promising to return after the end of a 52 years cycle.

 

• He can shape-shift to whatever form he desires. His Jaguar form represents sin, corruption, and all evil things. When in his white turkey form, he cleanses humans of guilt, contamination and helps them overcome their fate. He also tempts humans to their destruction. He is also known as Ipalnemoani, the god of creation.

 

• Tezcatlipoca spreads disease and pestilence to wherever he goes as he travels on howling winds, especially at night. He assumes the form of a blob and rolls like a tumbleweed, spreading sickness as he goes. Sometimes, he takes the form of a cock or a coyote and lurks at crossroads in order to ambush travelers.

 

Tezcatlipoca in Aztec Folklore:

Tezcatlipoca is regarded by the Aztecs as the god of the night, king of witches and the patron god of Aztec kings and young warriors. He is closely associated with the jaguars which the Aztecs considered as a symbol of hunting, warfare, and sacrifice.

Tezcatlipoca is also a head over the sky, witches, the earth, winds, the north, kingship, divination, and war. A god of vengeance who will not fail to punish evildoers on earth. The Aztec kings were his representatives on earth who stand before his image to perform all sorts of ceremonial rites to establish their unequaled right to rule.

He is the god of the sun who caused crops to ripen by his will and power, the god of the oppressed such as slaves and orphans, and the god of royalty and human sacrifice. This is why he can either be good or bad, just like most Aztec gods can be.

According to a legend, this spirit goes around at night in the form of a skeleton with ribs that are opened like a door. Anyone who meets him in this form and reaches into the rib-door and seizes his heart would receive promises of riches and power from Tezcatlipoca. Although, he only makes those promises to be released as he never keeps to the promise.

It was Tezcatlipoca and his brother, Tzitzimme, who created the world but he was sent out of Tamoanchan, the paradise after he picked the sacred roses of the Tamoanchan. He is also the trickster who deceived the first woman by turning into a rooster to seduce her. Tezcatlipoca proceeded to kill her, cut out her heart, and offer it as a sacrifice to the sun just like Aztec priests do to people who they kill.

Tezcatlipoca is to be blamed for the disappearance of the Toltecs, a mythical race of beings. The demon god summoned them to a great feast where they danced and sang. A sudden panic gripped them, and they fled across a stone bridge over the river Texcaltlauhco. Tezcatlipoca caused the bridge to collapse, and most of the Toltecs fell into the river and became stones. A few survived but were rendered senseless.

 

The Toxcatl

This is a ceremony dedicated to Tezcatlipoca which is celebrated at the height of the dry season in May and involves the sacrifice of a boy. A young lad is usually selected from among the prisoners, and throughout a time frame of one year, he becomes Tezcatlipoca traveling through Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital city. There, he is treated well, fed with good food, worn the best clothes, get trained in music and religion with a host of servants attending to him.

When it is about twenty days to the day of sacrifice, he marries four virgins who entertain him with music and dance as they walk throughout the streets of Tenochtitlan. On the appointed day, the young man and his entourage go to the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan, and they walk up the stairs as music and four flutes play (four flutes to represent the world directions being East, West, North, and South). He destroys the four flutes on the way, and when he gets to the top, the priests sacrifice him and a new young man is chosen for the following year.

Tezcatlipoca’s priests wear ornaments of the gods with various clothing for different rituals. Ornaments like a paper loincloth, a Tzanatl stick, and white turkey feather headdresses. They would sometimes cover themselves in black soot or charcoal during their priestly activities.

 

References:

https://  www. azteccalendar.com/god/Tezcatlipoca.

https://www.  ancient.eu /Tezcatlipoca/

https://www. britannica. com/topic/Tezcatlipoca

https://www. ancient-origins. net/myths-legends/tezcatlipoca-how-does-supreme-god-aztecs-compare-other-omnipotent-deities-007546

https: //www. thoughtco.com /tezcatlipoca-aztec-god-of-night-172964

The Encyclopedia of demons and demonology

https://  en.m   .wikipedia.org/wiki/Tezcatlipoca