GODS OF DEATH, EARTH, AND THE UNDERWORLD
MICTLANTECUTLI = “LORD OF MICTLAMPA” (REGION OF THE DEAD)
- Area of Worship: Mexican Plateau.
- Calendar Places: Lord of the tenth day-count, ce tecpatl, and of the tenth week. Eleventh of the thirteen lords of the day and fifth of the nine lords of the night.
- Symbol: Skull, or bunch of malinalli grass.
- Compass Direction: North.
- Relationship: Husband of Mictecaciuatl; one of the Tzitzimimê.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 14: This is one of the most striking representations of the Death-god which has come down to us. Here he is depicted as a skeleton with a skeleton’s thorax and a skull for head, the arms and legs painted white with yellow spots picked with red, to symbolize the bones of a newly flayed person. He has a large rosette at the occiput and a flag, both painted in alternate white and red cross-bands, and this motif is carried out in the ends of the loin-cloth, and in the extremities of other bands and stripes. He presents a burnt-offering. The symbolic crossways and the owl are figured before him, the death-bird being surrounded with paper flags, the decoration of corpses prepared for cremation. Sheet 15: On this sheet he wears the death-symbols. At the nape of the neck he has