5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.
The Aztec gods were worshipped by the Mexica people from their capital, Tenochtitlan, in central Mexico. They believed the sun would only move if fed with blood, which led to the famous sacrifices atop pyramid-temples. Their world was cut short by the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
The 18-month ritual calendar brought festivals such as Toxcatl, in which a youth lived for a year as the embodiment of Tezcatlipoca. Every 52 years, the New Fire Ceremony extinguished every flame in the empire, rekindled from a single bonfire to prevent the end of the world.
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At a glance
Tezcatlipoca (Tezcatlīpōca in Classical Nahuatl, 'The Smoking Mirror'), also acclaimed with reverence and awe by sublime theological titles such as Titlacauan ('We Are His Slaves'), Yaotl ('The Enemy Warrior'), Moyocoyani ('He Who Creates Himself' or 'The Absolute Arbiter'), Ipalnemoani ('He by Whom All Live') and Nezahualpilli ('The Fasting Prince'), is the omnipotent, omnipresent, unpredictable, sovereign and fearsome Mesoamerican deity of the starry night sky, of the cold winds of midnight, of inescapable and capricious fate, of shamanic sorcery, of warlike discord, of kingship and of merciless justice in Aztec, Toltec and Mesoamerican mythology. Lord of the First Sun (the Jaguar Sun, Nahui Océlotl) and of the cosmic quarter of the North (Mictlampa, the realm of darkness and death), Tezcatlipoca is the great architect of the dynamic conflict that keeps the universe in perpetual transformation: without his continuous provocation, the cosmos would stagnate in sterile inertia. Displaying as his supreme iconographic attribute a polished circular mirror of black obsidian in place of his right foot (amputated in the primordial waters while the god used it as bait to lure and capture the cosmic monster Tlaltecuhtli), Tezcatlipoca sees through the most secret thoughts, lies and hidden intentions of all human beings and gods. Protagonist of the most solemn and refined liturgical festival of the Aztec calendar, the feast of Tóxcatl — in which a young warrior of beauty and flawless physical perfection lived for a year as the living embodiment (ixiptla) of the god, amid imperial honours, playing ceramic flutes before being sacrificed voluntarily at the summit of the pyramid — Tezcatlipoca personifies existential uncertainty, the absolute power of fate that humbles the arrogant and raises the humble, and the dizzying truth that human life is an ephemeral breath in the hands of the invisible lord of the night.
15 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research
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Sacred symbols
Obsidian mirror, jaguar, the foot replaced by a mirror and the color black
Genealogy according to Códice Florentino de Frei Bernardino de Sahagún; Códice Borbônico; Códice Borgia; Códice Fejérváry-Mayer; Códice Chimalpopoca; Histoyre du Mechique
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Sources and further reading
Primary sources
Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. translation: Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, School of American Research, 1950–1982.
Anonymous, Codex Borbonicus. translation: Ferdinand Anders, ADEVA, 1991.
Studies
Guilhem Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, 'Lord of the Smoking Mirror'. University Press of Colorado, 2003.
Miguel León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind. University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Name and epithets
The theonym in Classical Nahuatl language Tezcatlīpōca is composed of the terms tezcatl ('mirror', specifically the ritual mirrors of black volcanic obsidian or polished pyrite used by Mesoamerican priests and seers for…
In the ancient sources
Florentine Codex (Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España)., c. 1577 CE.. The most monumental ethnographic documentary source on Tezcatlipoca, preserving the moving Nahuatl prayers of the kings at their coronation…
The myths
The Cosmic Fishing of Tlaltecuhtli and the Foot Taken by the Mirror.. In the archaic cosmological narratives preserved in the Histoyre du Mechique and in the Florentine Codex, it is told how solid earth was created at t…
Worship and archaeology
The cult of Tezcatlipoca was the deepest and most pervasive theological, ethical and political foundation of the entire Mexica (Aztec) Empire and of the Valley of Mexico.
How the god was depicted
The iconographic representation of Tezcatlipoca in the divinatory codices (Borgia, Borbonicus, Cospi and Fejérváry-Mayer) and in Aztec stone sculptures is of a visual sophistication and metaphorical density without para…
What scholars debate
The Theology of Omnipotence: Tezcatlipoca as 'Hidden Monotheism' or Henotheism.. Philosophers of religion, anthropologists and historians of Mesoamerican ideas, in particular Miguel León-Portilla and Alfredo López Austi…
After antiquity
In contemporary times, in the universal history of the philosophy of religions and in modern artistic culture, Tezcatlipoca is widely revered by anthropologists, poets and thinkers as one of the most mature, lucid and p…
Did you know?
The famous 'Obsidian Mirror of Tezcatlipoca', taken to Europe after the fall of Tenochtitlan, belonged in the sixteenth century to the astrologer, mathematician and personal magician of Queen Elizabeth I of England, the…
Codex relic
Obsidian Smoking Mirror. A black volcanic mirror that reveals secrets and conjures curses.
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