Xiuhtecuhtli- Aztec GodDeity"Turquoise Lord"

The Old God

Xiuhtecuhtli, the Turquoise Lord, carries a far older name: Huehueteotl, the Old God. Stone sculptures of a seated elder bearing a fire brazier on his head have been found at Cuicuilco and other early Mesoamerican sites dating to the first millennium BCE. The figures show a wrinkled, cross-legged man hunched beneath the weight of his brazier. By Aztec times this ancient figure had been absorbed into the imperial religion as Xiuhtecuhtli, lord of fire and time, though the archaic name Huehueteotl endured alongside the newer title. The Florentine Codex calls him "the mother and father of the gods."

The "xiuh" in his name carried three meanings: turquoise, year, and fire. He presided over the xiuhmolpilli, the fifty-two-year cycle after which the solar and ritual calendars realigned. When the cycle ended, the world could end with it.

The New Fire Ceremony

Every fifty-two years, the Aztecs performed the Toxiuhmolpilia. All fires throughout the empire were extinguished. Pottery, hearthstones, and household idols were cast into the water. The world went dark. Pregnant women were locked in granaries to prevent their transformation into monsters. Children were kept awake so they would not turn into mice.

On the Hill of the Star at Huixachtlan, priests waited for the Pleiades to cross the zenith of the midnight sky. When the stars confirmed that the cosmos would endure, the priests kindled a new fire using a fire drill pressed into the opened chest of a sacrificial victim. Runners carried this flame to the Templo Mayor, and from there it spread to every temple, palace, and household throughout Tenochtitlan and the wider empire. Every hearth relit from that single flame. The last New Fire Ceremony before the Spanish conquest took place in 1507, during the reign of Moctezuma II.

The Hearth Fire

Every household fire was Xiuhtecuhtli's. At the creation of the world, the gods set three stones to support the first fire, and every Aztec hearth with its three tenamaztli repeated that act. Maintaining the domestic fire was a religious duty. Food, incense, and pulque were cast into the flames before meals. Newborn children were presented to the hearth fire in a naming ceremony, their first meeting with the god who would be present at every meal and every gathering for the rest of their lives, and at their cremation.

Fire and Kingship

When a new tlatoani was enthroned, he fasted and prayed before Xiuhtecuhtli's flame. Sahágun records that fire offerings were central to the coronation rites. The new king's authority was not legitimate until the fire god had accepted it.

Xiuhtecuhtli's principal festival, Izcalli, fell at the end of the eighteenth month. New fire was kindled. Captives were sacrificed. Children born in the previous year were pierced through the earlobes and presented to the community, their first shedding of blood in the god's honor.