Mesoamerican mythology Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

the Lords of the Night ( nci, Yoalteuctin) are a set of nine

gods A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...

who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle. Each lord was associated with a particular fortune, bad or good, that was an omen for the night that they ruled over. The lords of the night are known in both the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

and

Maya calendar The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon a system which had ...

, although the specific names of the Maya Night Lords are unknown. The

glyphs A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

corresponding to the night gods are known and Mayanists identify them with labels G1 to G9, the G series. Generally, these glyphs are frequently used with a fixed glyph coined F. The only Mayan light lord that has been identified is the God G9, Pauahtun the Aged Quadripartite God. The existence of a 9 nights cycle in Mesoamerican calendrics was first discovered in 1904 by

Eduard Seler Eduard Georg Seler (December 5, 1849 – November 23, 1922) was a prominent German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, epigrapher, academic and Americanist scholar, who made extensive contributions in these fields towards the study of ...

. The Aztec names of the Deities are known because their names are glossed in the

Codex Telleriano-Remensis The Codex Telleriano-Remensis, produced in sixteenth century Mexico on European paper, is one of the finest surviving examples of Aztec manuscript painting. Its Latin language, Latinized name comes from Charles-Maurice Le Tellier, Charles-Maurice ...

and

Codex Tudela The Codex Tudela is a 16th-century pictorial Aztec codex. It is based on the same prototype as the Codex Magliabechiano, the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, and other documents of the Magliabechiano Group. Little is known about the codex's history. The Spa ...

. Seler argued that the 9 lords each corresponded to one of the nine levels of the underworld and ruled the corresponding hour of the nighttime; this argument has not generally been accepted, since the evidence suggests that the lord of a given night ruled over that entire night.

Zelia Nuttall Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall (6 September 1857 – 12 April 1933) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist specialised in pre-Aztec Mexican cultures and pre-Columbian manuscripts. She discovered two forgotten manuscripts of this type in ...

argued that the Nine Lords of the Night represented the nine moons of the

Lunar year A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gr ...

.Zelia Nuttall. 1904. The Periodical Adjustments of the Ancient Mexican Calendar. American Anthropologist , New Series, Vol. 6, No. 4 pp. 486-500 The cycle of the Nine Lords of the Night held special relation to the Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260-days and nights which includes exactly 29 groups of 9 nights each, and also, approximately, 9 vague lunations of 29 days each. The Nine Lords of the Night in Aztec mythology are:Elizabeth Hill Boone. 2007. Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. University of Texas Press pp. 44-45 :

Xiuhtecuhtli In Aztec mythology, Xiuhtecuhtli ("Turquoise Lord" or "Lord of Fire"), was the god of fire, day and heat. In historical sources he is called by many names, which reflect his varied aspects and dwellings in the three parts of the cosmos. He was t ...

("Turquoise/Year/Fire Lord") :

Tezcatlipoca Tezcatlipoca (; nci, Tēzcatl ihpōca ) was a central deity in Aztec religion, and his main festival was the Toxcatl ceremony celebrated in the month of May. One of the four sons of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the God of providence, he is a ...

("Smoking Mirror") :

Piltzintecuhtli In Aztec mythology, Piltzintecuhtli was a god of the rising sun, healing, and visions, associated with Tōnatiuh. The name means "the Young Prince". It may have been another name for Tōnatiuh, but he is also mentioned as a possibly unique indiv ...

("Prince Lord") : Centeotl ("Maize God") : Mictlantecuhtli ("Underworld Lord") :

Chalchiuhtlicue Chalchiuhtlicue (from ''chālchihuitl'' "jade" and ''cuēitl'' "skirt") (also spelled Chalciuhtlicue, Chalchiuhcueye, or Chalcihuitlicue) ("She of the Jade Skirt") is an Aztec deity of water, rivers, seas, streams, storms, and baptism. Chalch ...

("Jade Is Her Skirt") : Tlazolteotl ("Filth God ess) : Tepeyollotl ("Mountain Heart") : Tlaloc ("Rain God")

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lords Of The Night Aztec mythology and religion Mesoamerican calendars Mesoamerican mythology and religion Aztec calendars Maya calendars Night deities Nonets