Tezcatlipoca: Enigmatic Aztec God Who Looked Inside People’s Hearts And Observed Their Deeds On Earth

A. Sutherland – AncientPages.com – No doubt, Tezcatlipoca (‘Lord of the Smoking Mirror’) was one of the most powerful deities of pre-Columbian Mexico.

In the mythology of the late Maya and Aztecs, he is one of the four creator gods.
Known as the Black Tezcatlipoca (Lord of the Night Sky) or Tezcatlipoca, he was the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery, and the Earth, who presided over the North, a cold region associated with death and the color black.

He was accompanied by Xipe Totec (the Red Tezcatlipoca), the god of gold, farming, and springtime, associated with the East direction. The second was Huitzilopochtli (the Blue Tezcatlipoca), related to the South, war, and hunting, who later became the sun god responsible for the sun’s movement across the sky in certain beliefs.

It was believed that without his power, the sun would stand still or fall from the heavens. The last one was Quetzalcoatl (the White Tezcatlipoca), the god of light, mercy, and wind, associated with the West and known as Kukulkan among the Mayan people in Mexico.