(from huitzilin, "hummingbird," and opochtli, "left") was the Aztec sun and war god...
The Aztecs believed that dead warriors came back to life as hummingbirds and that the south was the left side of the world.
It was believed that after their death the warriors first formed part of the sun's brilliant retinue; then, after four years, they went to live forever in the bodies of hummingbirds.
Huitzilopochtli's creation may have come from the ancient Mexica god "Opochtli", the Left Handed One, and a leading old Chichimec god of weapons and water.
Opochtli is thought to have been worshipped in ancient Aztlan.
Huitzilopochtli is said to be a representation of Tezcatlipoca in midsummer as the high sun in the southern sky.
Before anyone asks, Opochtli can cast Cleric spells because he used an atonement spell, thus regaining his clerical abilities.
He is a priest of Smoking Mirror, the trickery aspect of the sun who had been turned into a jaguar.
Opochtli made a bet with smoking mirror that he could be just as powerful by taking power from the other gods as he could be by worshipping one full time.
Mexican Mythology(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
Opochtli (The Left-handed) was the god sacred to fishers and bird-catchers.
At one period of Aztec history he must have been a deity of considerable consequence, since for generations the Aztecs were marsh-dwellers and depended for their daily food on the fish netted in the lakes and the birds snared in the reeds.
A procession was afterwards formed, in which marched old people who had dedicated themselves to the worship of the god, probably because they could obtain no other means of subsistence than that afforded by the vocation of which he was tutelar and patron.
AZTEC(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
Huitzilopochtli's creation may also have come from the ancient Mexica god "Opochtli", the Left Handed One, and a leading old Chichimec god of weapons and water.
Opochtli is thought to have been worshipped in ancient Aztlan (ancient Mexico).
He is considered an incarnation of the sun and struggles with the forces of night to keep mankind alive.
Mythologie aztèque(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
(the hummingbird of left, huitzilin, the hummingbird and opochtli of left)
It represents the sun triumphing with the zenith.
But when the matricides wanted to put their fl intention at execution, Huitzilopochtli left the belly of his/her mother, armed with one shield to the left hand and a blue dart to the right hand.
Hym to the God of fishing(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
On slender and questionable grounds Clavigero identifies him with Opochtli, the god of net makers and fishers with nets (Storia Antica del Messico, Tom.
The four noble ones referred to in vv.
Opochtli is the God of fishing, hunting and bird snaring.
'Huitzilli' is the 'hummingbird' (or 'colibri') and 'opochtli' means 'left' but also 'sinister' (malignant) (Santamaría 1959: 606 siniestro, zurdo).
For no one came forth as his father (ichica ca çan jvitl, in temoc injc otztic in jnan in coacue; caiac nez in ita) (FC, Book III: 5).
The traditional conventional interpretation is that opochtli is related to the south, probably, however a reconstruction of the legend that dead warriors carried the Sun from the east to the zenith where they transformed into hummingbirds!
