Copil
Aztec/Mexica · deity · chichimec migration · Recorded classification
Copil's heart is on the Mexican flag. He came after Huitzilopochtli to avenge his mother, lost, and was killed on a small hill; his heart was torn out and thrown as far as it would go into the lake, where it fell on a rock and a nopal cactus grew out of it. Generations later the wandering Mexica were told to build where they saw an eagle on a cactus, and there it was, on his heart. A city founded on a murdered cousin, and the founding sign is still the national emblem.
Parentage
- parent: Malinalxochitl
Sources
- Copil is the son of Malinalxochitl who sought vengeance on Huitzilopochtli, was killed, and whose heart thrown into the lake produced the cactus on which the eagle perched, marking the site of Tenochtitlan.: Reference treatments of Copil, Malinalxochitl and the founding of Tenochtitlan. (secondary)