Tlalchitonatiuh (; "sun of the red earth" or "red sun of the earth", from ''tlālli'', earth, soil; ''chīltic'', red; ''tōnatiuh'' or ''tōnatih'', sun) was a

Mesoamerican Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

deity associated with the setting

sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

, when the

stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

start to appear in the night sky. Tlalchitonatiuh was worshipped among many

Mesoamerican cultures This is a list of pre-Columbian cultures. Cultural characteristics Many pre-Columbian civilizations established permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, and complex societal hierarchies. In North America, indigenous cultures in the Lower ...

including

Mayans Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...

, but originated from the

Toltec The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...

civilization. Along with

Xolotl In Aztec mythology, Xolotl () was a god of fire and lightning. He was commonly depicted as a dog-headed man and was a soul-guide for the dead. He was also god of twins, monsters, death, misfortune, sickness, and deformities. Xolotl is the canin ...

, Tlalchitonatiuh reigned in the sixteenth

trecena A trecena (From Spanish: trece) is a 13-day period used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican calendars. The 260-day Mayan calendar (the '' tonalpohualli'') was divided into 20 trecenas. Trecena is derived from the Spanish chroniclers and translates to ...

of the Tonalpohualli. According to

Codex Ríos Codex Ríos, originally titled and also known as Codex Vaticanus A, is a 16th-century Italian translation and augmentation of an Aztec codex, the precise identity of which remains uncertain. Its source may have been either Codex Telleriano-Reme ...

, he is represented symbolically as a young man with the sun over his shoulders and death and darkness beneath his feet, representing the setting sun. In the Borgia Codex Tlalchitonatiuh was represented as Tlalchitecuhtli devouring the solar mortuary bag.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tlālchitōnatiuh Mesoamerican deities Solar gods Maya gods

See also

References