Four Tezcatlipocas- Aztec GroupCollective

Origins and the Act of Creation

In the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, the primordial couple Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl brought forth four sons who would become the architects of the world. Each bore a color and directional association: Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca, the Red, associated with the east; Yayauhqui Tezcatlipoca, the Black, lord of the north; Quetzalcoatl, the White, aligned with the west; and Huitzilopochtli, the Blue, placed in the south. For six hundred years after their birth, these four gods waited in stillness before beginning the work of creation.

When they at last set to their task, they created fire, then fashioned a half sun to give partial light to the world. They brought forth the first human pair, Oxomoco and Cipactonal, and through them established the calendar. They created Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl to rule the underworld, shaped the thirteen heavens and the waters, and raised up the great caiman Cipactli to form the earth from its body. The ordering of the cosmos proceeded through their joint labor, each brother contributing according to his nature and directional power.

The Cycle of the Five Suns

The most consequential act of the Four Tezcatlipocas was the creation and destruction of the successive cosmic ages known as the Five Suns. In each age, one of the brothers assumed the role of the sustaining sun, only to be overthrown by another, plunging the world into catastrophe and renewal.

Tezcatlipoca became the first sun, Nahui Ocelotl (Four Jaguar), which endured for 676 years until Quetzalcoatl struck him down with a great staff, casting him into the waters. Jaguars devoured the earth's giant inhabitants. Quetzalcoatl then took up the mantle as the second sun, Nahui Ehecatl (Four Wind), until Tezcatlipoca kicked him from the sky, unleashing a hurricane that swept away the people and transformed the survivors into monkeys. Tlaloc served as the third sun, Nahui Quiahuitl (Four Rain), destroyed when Quetzalcoatl sent a rain of fire upon the earth. Chalchiuhtlicue presided over the fourth sun, Nahui Atl (Four Water), which ended in a catastrophic flood that turned its people into fish.

The current age, the Fifth Sun, required a different sacrifice at Teotihuacan, where Nanahuatzin cast himself into the divine bonfire to become the sun. The cycle of creation and destruction driven by the rivalries of the Four Tezcatlipocas established the fundamental Aztec understanding that the cosmos is fragile, sustained only through blood and sacrifice, and forever shaped by the tensions among its creators.