Nanahuatzin sacrificed himself in the divine bonfire at Teotihuacan and was transformed into Tonatiuh, the Fifth Sun, rising in blazing light from the ashes of his diseased body.
Xolotl, the dog-headed evening star, guides the sun Tonatiuh through the dark passages of Mictlan each night, ensuring its safe passage from west to east so it may rise again at dawn.
Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the morning star, challenged Tonatiuh at the dawn of the Fifth Sun, hurling darts of light at the newly risen sun — but Tonatiuh struck back and cast the morning star down, transforming him into the frost god Itztlacoliuhqui.
Tonatiuh wages eternal war against the Tzitzimimeh, the skeletal star demons who seek to devour him during eclipses and threaten to overwhelm the world at the end of each fifty-two-year cycle if the New Fire ceremony fails.
Huitzilopochtli and Tonatiuh preside over Tonatiuhichan, the House of the Sun, where warriors slain in battle and women who died in childbirth accompany the sun across the sky for four years before returning to earth as hummingbirds and butterflies.
Quetzalcoatl organized the divine assembly at Teotihuacan where Nanahuatzin sacrificed himself in the fire to become Tonatiuh, the Fifth Sun. Quetzalcoatl then sacrificed the other gods to set the new sun in motion.
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