all creation along with him. Uitzilopochtli, as the spirit of the maguey-plant, was the tribal fetish of the Aztecâ, and therefore their natural leader in battle. The connection is obvious and does not require to be laboured. Because of his tribal leadership in war, a governance of which Mexican myth and history bear eloquent testimony, he became confounded with the luminary which demanded blood and lived by human strife.
The solar connection of the octli liquor yielded by his plant is also most clear. Says Duran37: “The octli was a favourite offering to the gods, and especially to the god of fire. Sometimes it was placed before a fire in vases; sometimes it was scattered upon the flames with a brush (aspergillum?); at other times it was poured out around the fire-place.” Fire is, of course, a surrogate of the sun, and Seler has already identified Uitzilopochtli as a fire-god in virtue of his status as a sun-deity,38 showing that the drilling of the solar fire before the beginning of the new cycle of fifty-two years was deferred until the panquetzalitztli, the great feast of Uitzilopochtli. Jacinto de la Serna, too, says that the octli ritual invoked the “shining Rose; light-giving Rose, to receive and rejoice my heart before the god.” The “rose,” of course, referring to the fire or sun. It would seem, however, that before he became confounded or identified with the sun, Uitzilopochtli may have possessed a lunar significance, and this may have obtained in the period while yet the calendar was reckoned upon a lunar basis and its solar connection still remained undefined. The name Mexitli, which has already been remarked upon, and which means “Hare of the Maguey” appears to place Uitzilopochtli upon a level with the other gods of octli, if not to class him as one of these.