Aztec god and twin of Xolotl, Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacan. \u00a9 Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAlthough the Aztecs thought twins to be a sort of malformation, Xolotl’s twin, Quetzalcoatl, was revered as one of the most powerful deities. The Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl occur together in several tales. Coatlicue (which means “skirt of snakes”), a primordial earth goddess, is believed to have given birth to the two gods.<\/p>\n
According to one version of a well-known tale about the origin of mankind, Quetzalcoatl and his twin journey to Mictlan (the Aztec underworld), to gather the bones of the dead so that humans can be born. It should be noted that Xolotl was also responsible for bringing fire from the underworld for humans.<\/p>\n
Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl were also thought to be the twin phases of Venus, since the Aztecs believed the former was the twilight star and the latter was the morning star. The essential role of guiding and guarding the Sun on its treacherous night trip through the land of the dead fell to Xolotl as the evening star.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was also because of this duty that the Aztecs considered him to be a psychopomp, or a being who escorted the freshly deceased on their journey to the underworld.<\/p>\n
To summarise, Xolotl was not one of the most fortunate Aztec gods, given all of the terrible things he was linked with. But it’s still important to note that he played a significant role in Aztec mythology, as he guided the Sun on its nightly journey through the underworld, and he also guided the dead to their final resting place.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xolotl was a deity linked with Quetzalcoatl, one of the most prominent gods in the Aztec pantheon, according to Aztec mythology. In reality, Xolotl was thought to be Quetzalcoatl’s twin brother. Unlike his sibling, Xolotl, however, is associated with negative traits, which can be seen in both his physical shape and how he is represented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":1,"featured_media":17382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[88,244,151,167],"blocksy_meta":[],"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"link","format":"url"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mru.ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}