The Aztec pantheon descends from Ometeotl, the dual creator who dwells in the highest heaven. From this source came the brother-gods who built and unmade the world's successive suns: the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, the smoking mirror Tezcatlipoca, and the war-sun Huitzilopochtli, patron of Tenochtitlan.
Around them stand the gods who govern survival and the afterlife — Tlaloc, who sends the rains that feed the maize, and Mictlantecuhtli, skeletal lord of the underworld of Mictlan. Together they form a cosmos kept alive only through sacrifice.
This is a pantheon defined by cycles rather than a single fixed order of events. Aztec cosmology holds that the world has already been created and destroyed four times, each of the "Five Suns" ruled and ended by a different god — Tezcatlipoca's earth-age fell to jaguars, Quetzalcoatl's to hurricanes, Tlaloc's to fiery rain, and a fourth age governed by the water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue to a great flood — before the present, fifth sun was set moving at Teotihuacan and given life through Huitzilopochtli's war-driven cult. That present age was, in Mexica belief, sustained day by day through offerings and sacrifice performed at the twin-shrined Templo Mayor in their capital, Tenochtitlan — the physical and ritual heart of the entire pantheon.
Family ties bind the pantheon as much as shared purpose does. Ometeotl's four sons divide the cosmos among the cardinal directions; Tlaloc rules alongside his consort Chalchiuhtlicue and a company of small rain-spirits, the Tlaloque; and Mictlantecuhtli shares his underworld throne with Mictecacihuatl, the "Lady of the Dead." The rivalry between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca is the engine behind most of the pantheon's best-known myths, from the shaping of the earth-monster into land and sky to the recurring destruction and rebirth of the world itself.
Members
- Ometeotl — the dual primordial creator, source of the rest of the pantheon.
- Quetzalcoatl — the feathered serpent of wind, wisdom, and creation.
- Tezcatlipoca — the smoking-mirror god of night, sorcery, and fate.
- Huitzilopochtli — the war-sun god and patron of Tenochtitlan.
- Tlaloc — the rain and fertility god who rules the paradise of Tlalocan.
- Mictlantecuhtli — the skeletal lord of the underworld of Mictlan.
For the wider tradition these gods belong to, see the Aztec mythology overview.
