Tepeyollotl

Tepeyollotl (in the standardized classical Nahuatl orthography Tēpeyyōllōtl or Tēpeyōllōtli, meaning 'Heart of the Mountain') is the feared and revered Mexica telluric deity who personifies the rocky interior of the earth, the dark caves (oztotl), earthquakes, and the acoustic reverberation of echoes in the mountain ranges of central Mexico. In Nahua priestly theology he is regarded as a zoomorphic manifestation or nahualli (shamanic animal double) of the great god Tezcatlipoca. Tepeyollotl assumes the cosmic form of a sacred jaguar (ocelotl) whose tawny pelt, painted with dark rosettes, represents the starry night sky reflected in the depths of the underworld. In the 260-day divinatory calendar (tonalpohualli), Tepeyollotl holds a position of exceptional cosmological prominence: he is the eighth of the Nine Lords of the Night (Yoalteuctin) and rules as sovereign patron over the third trecena, begun by the sign 1-Deer (Ce Mazatl). The pre-Hispanic pictographic codices of the Borgia Group and the colonial pictorial manuscripts of the Magliabechiano and Telleriano-Remensis groups depict him now as a complete jaguar in a dynamic leap before temples and caves, now as a royal dignitary wearing a feline mask or helmet, holding clay incense burners and bands of smoking obsidian mirror. For the mountain hunters, miners, and hermits who crossed mountain gorges, the mysterious roar of the jaguar and the deafening rumble of earthquakes were understood as the breath and the audible word of the living heart of the mountains themselves.

6 min read · Reviewed on September 29, 2026 · How we research

The jaguar, the dark cavern, the mountain and the subterranean echo

Primary sources

• Sixteenth-century Tlacuilos and Glossators, Codex Telleriano-Remensis (pictorial manuscript, fols. 9v–10r). translation: Facsimile edition with commentary by E. Quiñones Keber (Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, 1995, panel of Ce Mazatl). read
• Colonial Indigenous Painters and Interpreters, Códice Vaticano A (Codex Ríos / Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana MS 3738). translation: F. Anders and M. Jansen, Explanatory book on Mexica religion and history (FCE, 1996, fols. 17v–18r). read
• Sacred Tlacuilos of the Cholula-Tlaxcala Region, Codex Borgia (Codex Borgianus, fols. 10, 14 and 63). translation: E. Seler, Commentaries on the Mexican Pictographic Codices (FCE, México, vol. I, 1963). read
• Fray Bernardino de Sahagún and Trilingual Collaborators of Tlatelolco, Florentine Codex: Book 4 (The Art of Divination and the Sacred Calendar). translation: A. J. O. Anderson and C. E. Dibble, The Soothsayers (The School of American Research, Santa Fe, NM, 1979). read

Studies

• Guilhem Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, 'Lord of the Smoking Mirror'. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2003. open
• Eduard Seler, The Tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection: An Old Mexican Picture Manuscript. Hazell, Watson & Viney, Londres e Berlim, 1900–1901. open
• Alfredo López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología: Las concepciones de los antiguos nahuas. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, UNAM, México, 1980. open
• Doris Heyden, Caves, Gods, and Myths: World-View and Planning in Teotihuacan (Mesoamerican Sites and World-Views). Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 1981. open