Xiuhtecuhtli

Xiuhtecuhtli
God of Fire, the Day, Years, Time, Creation, Knowledge, Rulership
Mural of Xiuhtecuhtli in the temple city of Teotlan, inside what is now Tequitinitlan, depicting the deity anointing the Tlecoyani with Xiuhatl
Other names	Huehueteotl, Cuezaltzin, Ixcozauhqui
Planet	Mars
Animals	Condors, Birds
Tree	Firetree
Color	Red - Black
Number	Eight
Gender	Male
Region	Ixtleconism
Consort	Chantico
Offspring	Huitzilopochtli

Xiuhtecuhtli is the Lord of Fire or Turquoise Lord, the supreme god of the Ixtleconic pantheon and patron of the Nahuas of Zacapican. He is a god of fire and time, but is more proadly the personification of the pure Ixtleco for which the religion is named, upward energy, rising or ascending heat and agitation, and infinite renewal and rebirth. From here, Xiuhtecuhtli becomes assoiciated with knowledge, science and the arts, the persuit of wisdom and of great works, as well as the god of heat, the day and the year, the god of creation, healing and of rulers. Xiuhtecuhtli is revered as the first divinity in Ixtleconism, the one who created himself, and the eldest of all the gods Huehueteotl. He is worshipped in the far north of Zacapican as Ixcozauhqui, the Yellow Faced god, in Texomillipan as Cuezaltzin the Living Flame. Other deities that comrpise the Xiuhtecuhtli complex are treated as distinct but related gods, or as aspects of Xiuhtecuhtli, and include Xiuhcihuatl the Lady of Fire, better known as Chantico, Xolotl the death god of lightning and volcanos, and the demi-god sorcerer hero deity Huitzilopochtli.

As with most of the Ixtleconic deities of Zacapine origin, Xiuhtecuhtli was originally a god of the Hec who was later adopted by the Nahua migration and subsequently re-interpreted in the religious movement of Cozauh Tlecoyani. The Tlecoyani style himself as a prophet of Xiuhtecuhtli, redefining what was at the time considered a secondary deity as the eldest, the creator and the patron of humans. With the spread of the Tlecoyani's movement and the Ixtleconic religion, Xiuhtecuhtli became widely accepted and much of Zacapican's temples transitioned from polytheism to henotheism of the fire god. Over the millenia, Xiuhtecuhtli has been associated with numerous supreme deities such the Latin Jupiter, the Judeo-Sarpetic Godhead, and others, and is often cast in their place adopting some of their charachertistics in numerous Ixtleconic syncretic cults developed by Zacapine priest to convert foreign peoples and heathens.

Mythology

The essence of Xiuhtecuhtli is fire and heat, where he is often represented by the "living flame", a sacred blaze contained in a ceremonial brazier within Ixtleconist temples. This holy fire is always placed in the center of the temple, as is the fire in the traditional Zacapine home, which both reflects the position of honor which Xiuhtecuhtli holds at the center of the universe, but also allows the whole of the congregation or the family to gather around the fire in a circle and all be cast in the light and the warmth of it in equal measure. Warmth more generally is also closely associated with Xiuhtecuhtli. The body heat of humans, as well as of other mammals and birds, is the basis of the Ixtleconic creation myth of humans. According to the Ixtleconic re-interpretation of Hec myth, the goddess Itzpapalotl created humans in her star paradise Tamoancha, and put these beast-humans into the wild world. Xiuhtecuhtli however, admired the cunning and intelligence of humans and implanted within them the essence of his fire, elevating them with compassion, purpose and morality from the other beasts of the world and placing within them the heat of their bodies, transforming them from their prior form as scaly, cave dwelling beasts into recognizable human beings. Heat generated by the body, which is elevated by work and agitation aligned with the notion of Ixtleco, is therefore the implanted essence of Xiuhtecuhtli that acts as the human soul radiating heat as it is fed by human efforts and ascending energy. Likewise, the increasing heat generated by the body in response to cold is seen as the force of Xiuhtecuhtli inic Yolli (lit. Xiuhtecuhtli in the Heart), provoked by the assault of the cold on the body, eminating heat in a state of anger and agitation.

One of the central aspects of Xiuhtecuhtli's mythology and associations is that of rebirth, symbolized by the fire which lights itself again and returns to life after being put out. This is tied with the cycles of the day and the year, specifically the heat of the daytime and of the summer which burns brightly for a time before waining and seemingly dying out at night and during the winter, only to return again as the cycle begins again, affecting the renewal of heat and light. The day itself, and the full cycle of the year, and seen as one of the cosmic bodies of Xiuhtecuhtli which is reincarnated again and again, each cycle being the "son" of the previous "father" cycle. Because of this Xiuhtecuhtli is the lord of the day and year, embodiment of cyclical time. The typical or principal representation of Xiuhtecuhtli is in the form of a man in his prime, while his embodiment as Huehueteotl shows him as the elder god, the one born at the begining of time, deity of old age and the waining flame. In some variations, Huitzilopochtli is also shown as the young flame, a young man or teenager who has not yet reached the apex of his radiant power but is in the ascent of this cycle. Through these three representations of his form in youth, middle age and old age, Xiuhtecuhtli himself embodies the arc of human life and represents its constant renewal through reincarnation and the onset of generation over generation.

In the central myth of Ixtleconism, the Teoizo or Divine Autosacrifice, Xiuhtecuhtli is betrayed by the lesser gods and dismembered, disemboweled and scattered across the universe. The cause of this is generally the gift of fire (previously the sole domain of the gods) to humans, which offended the gods and caused them to kill their maker in retaliation. Many versions of the Teoizo story have varriations in certain specifics, as some of them cast Itzpapalotl, Tezcatlipoca, , Mictlantecuhtli, Xolotl or Tlaltecuhtli as the villains which rose in rebellion against Xiuhtecuhtli, and many stories vary on the roles of legendary humans in the myth. The latter is often the subject of religious plays and parables, and vary or change through the ages. However, in the most common enemy of Xiuhtecuhtli is Tezcatlipoca, the Lord of the Night, who is responsible for killing Xiuhtecuhtli and bringing about nightfall and the darkness of winter. However, Xiuhtecuhtli cannot be permanently killed and is always reborn again to reign for another day before being again brought down by his enemy. The worship and sacrifices offered by the human faithful of Xiuhtecuhtli, Ixtleconists or those who uphold the covenant, is beleived to aid Xiuhtecuhtli in this eternal battle and state of intermittent life and death.

Worship

Ritual fire used in the daily Huentlatlatilli fire sacrifice.

Many of the daily rituals in home shrines or Ixtleconist temples of Xiuhtecuhtli revolve around the central fire, which is always kept burning at the geometric center of the temple and traditional style homes in Zacapican. In the temple, the flame is used daily as the focus of morning, noon and evening worship and as the altar of fire sacrifice. The same is true of the central flames of the home shrines, however these traditionally doubled as practical fires on which the family's meals would be cooked, as well as a source of light at night and heat in the winter. Such home shrine flames could be honored through conventional fire sacrifice, but were more often honored by casting the first mouthfull of every meal into the fire as symbolic sustenance and sacrifice to Xiuhtecuhtli. Such ritual fires are usually kept low during the night in the temple or left to go out in the case of home fires, where the embers are used for heating, symbolizing the darkness and cold of the night at the lowest point of Xiuhtecuhtli's cycle of rebirth. The flame is then rekindled in the morning as part of the morning worship and maintaigned throughout the day, reaching its highest during the mid-day fire sacrifice, and being used to cook and heat the house throughout the day, as well as to light candles, torches and other start other flames used for working functions such as the furnaces of a metalworker or kiln of a pottery maker.

Ritual fires are also used for meditation and divination. The most common form of Ixtleconist divination is osteomancy, in which bones would be heated over the ceremonial flame until they cracked, and the pattern of the cracks would be used to produce prophesy and predictions regarding future events. Historically, human bone was almost always used for this ritual, while in the modern day it has largely been replaced by bones of cattle or chicken. While the practice long predates Ixtleconism, it subsequently became associated with the priests of the fire god, who adopted the old practice as a means of receiving messages from their god who could speak through the flames by marking the bones. Bones which were marked by auspicious signs could be worn as talismans against bad luck or evil, or kept as relics in temples or vaults, as they represented the litteral word of the god Xiuhtecuhtli.

Ixtleconist funeral practices center on Xiuhtecuhtli and the process of returning the body of the deceased back to its creator as a point of honor and sacrifice to the god. Ritual cremation has been the standard for Zacapine funerals for thousands of years, their rise to prominence over burial coinciding with the rise of Ixtleconism. The religious basis of this practice is the beleif that the physical creator of the human animal, Itzpapalotl, will come to relaim the body once the burning soul implanted in it by Xiuhtecuhtli returns to its creator. If the body remains as flesh, it will be possesed by a Tzitzimitl, a star demon servant of Itzpapalotl, resulting the corpse being reanimated as an undead creature. Therefore, the bodies of the dead are required to be promptly and thuroughly cremated and transformed to ash, a pure substance that mortal flesh becomes through the divine heat of Xiuhtecuhtli's flames. The burning of cadavers also doubles as another form of fire sacrifice, which honors and empowers Xiuhtecuhtli.

Xiuhtecuhtli is often worshipped by imbibing his liquid essence, the sacred drink Xiuhatl. The so called Turqoise water, an alcoholic beverage brewed exclusively by monks as mandated by religious law, is the main object of the worship of Xiuhtecuhtli as the god of revelry and energetic festivity. Xiuhatl, also called liquid fire or fire-water (an alternate translation of its Nahuatl name), is strongly linked with fire not only through its religious association as the essence of Xiuhtecuhtli distilled by the monks, but is also known to be flammable as a liquor and is often spat by worshippers directly into the ritual fire to ignite flashing fireballs. Many link the sensation of the "burn" of alcohol with the god and his divine essence. The Turqoise water is said to fill the worshipper with rapturous energies, causing them to loose sense of inhibition and eventually, begin to loose their senses and selves in the overwhelming divinity distilled in the liquid which could temporarily or permanently overwhelm the soul -described as a flame burning out as it consumes its fuel all at once- and cause damage, which makes overconsumption of Xiuhatl dangerous and warned against in many scriptures. The Xiuhatl ritual is central to many religious festivities in Zacapican, all of which worship Xiuhtecuhtli as their lord of festivity, madness and debauchery manifested by the wild flame.