Who was Mictlantecuhtli? A definition of Cecilio A. Robelo
Mictlant is Mictlantlantecuhtli. (MIctlan, the mansion of the dead; hell according to the missionaries; tecutli, sir: the lord of the mansion of dead or hell. ) The god of the mansion of the dead, or of hell according to the missionaries. Sahagun says :
“... hell, where there was and lived a devil named Mictlantecutli, and by another name Tzontemoc, and a goddess named Mictlantsecacihuatl (V. ) who was a woman of Mictlantecutli." We have already seen that it was a mistake of the missionaries to take the Mictlan of the Nahoas for the Christians hell.
Chavero does not grant a personality of his own to Mictlantecutli, but believes that he is the Sun, who during the day is called Tonatiuh; in the afternoon, hiding behind the earth, they called him Tzontemoc, "the one who falls on his head"; and, lastly, during the night, he was Mictlantecutli.
"The motive of this transformation - he says - is very easy to explain, because the nahoas believed that when the sun was setting in the West it was going to illuminate the dead, to be the lord of the mansion of the dead, the Mictlantecutli. The Nahoas, like the Egyptians, when observing that the sun disappearing in the evenings behind the horizon, judged that it was going to the underground world, and as there it was figured that the Mictlan or Mansion of the Dead was, they said that the sun at night was going to illuminate them. Thus the star god Tonatiuh, becomes Tzontemoc in the afternoon, and at night in Mictlantecutli”.
It serves as support to the cited author for his exhibition, the examination he makes of the stone of the sun, vulgo Aztec Calendar, the stone of Tuxpan, which represents Tzontemoc and the painting Mictlantecutli in the Vatican Code.
Definition obtained from Cecilio A. Nahuatl Dictionary of Mythology. Steal it.
