Tonacatecuhtli

Male member of the primordial couple in Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1. The couple inhabits the thirteenth heaven; the account names four sons, including Quetzalcoatl. Its narrative does not supply the couple with named parents.

Parentage

Recorded default; alternative parentage accounts are listed separately below.

No parents recorded in the default.

Parentage accounts

Each account is a separate source claim. The parentage and children listed outside these accounts use the recorded default. Selecting an account in the interactive app updates its lineage, descent classification and inherited-power candidates. Linked pedigree accounts are selected together; other records retain their recorded parentage. Claims of ancestry are not proof of biological descent or attested powers.

• Pinturas chapter 1: self-created pair

  deity by descent in this account.

  No parents recorded in this account.

  Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1 (sixteenth-century account); Phillips 1883, pp. 616–617 (primary)

Children in alternative accounts

• Huitzilopochtli: Historia de los Mexicanos, chapter 1: creator coupleHistoria de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1 (sixteenth-century account); Phillips 1883, pp. 616–617 (primary)
• Quetzalcoatl: Historia de los Mexicanos, chapter 1: creator coupleHistoria de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1 (sixteenth-century account); Phillips 1883, pp. 616–617 (primary)
• Tezcatlipoca: Historia de los Mexicanos, chapter 1: creator coupleHistoria de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1 (sixteenth-century account); Phillips 1883, pp. 616–617 (primary)
• Mixcoatl: Historia de los Mexicanos, chapter 1: creator couple (Camaxtli identification)Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1 (sixteenth-century account); Phillips 1883, pp. 616–617 (primary)
• Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl: Divine breath account as reported by BrintonDaniel G. Brinton, American Hero-Myths (1882), chapter III, section 1: Chimalman parentage narratives and their cited witnesses (secondary)

Variant accounts

• Whether a fused deity called Ometeotl existed among the Aztecs is disputed.Some scholars read Ometeotl as a single dual god; others — Richard Haly in 1992 most sharply — argue that there was no Ometeotl, Ometecuhtli or Omecihuatl among the Aztecs at all, and that the figure is a deific multiplicity on the model of the Trinity read into translated texts by historians. James Maffie has answered Haly, noting that the references are confined to cosmological and cosmogonical texts. This registry records the pair the Aztec sources name and links them to the fused record it already held, rather than deciding the question.Reference treatment of Ometeotl, setting out the dispute between Haly's argument that no such deity existed and Maffie's counter-argument. (secondary)

Domains

• creation
• sustenance

Relations

• spouse: TonacacihuatlThe other half. The pairing is the theology: this is a cosmos whose first principle is not one thing but two things in relation, which is what the name Omeyocan — Place of Duality — says.Reference treatment of the pair as a husband-and-wife duo ruling Omeyocan. (secondary)
• counterpart of: OmeteotlThe registry's Ometeotl record is the fused form of this pair. Whether the Aztecs had such a fused deity at all is disputed; see the variant on this record.Reference treatment of Ometeotl as the binary god comprising Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, named in the Aztec sources as Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl. (secondary)

Sources

• Tonacatecuhtli, also called Ometecuhtli, is the male half of the Mexica primordial couple who dwell in Omeyocan, the highest heaven, and from whom the souls of children descend.: Reference treatments of Ometeotl, Tonacatecuhtli, Tonacacihuatl and Omeyocan. (secondary)
• Male member of the primordial couple in Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1. The couple inhabits the thirteenth heaven; the account names four sons, including Quetzalcoatl. Its narrative does not supply the couple with named parents.: Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, chapter 1 (sixteenth-century account); Phillips 1883, pp. 616–617 (primary)