Tlecoyanism
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Tlecoyanism, also known as the Sacred Covenant (Nahuatl: ๐ ฏ๐ ฉ๐ ๐ ฐ๐ ๐ ๐ ญ๐ ๐ ฎ, Teotlacemitoliztli), is a henotheistic religion based on the teachings of the nahuatl-speaking prophet Tleyacapantli who lived in ancient Zacapican. The faith emerged along with its founding prophet in the second millennium BCE some time after the settlement the of the migratory Nahua people on the Zacaco plain, making it one of the oldest surviving religions in the world. It served as the state religion for the ancient and medieval Zacapitec empires and was spread across southern Oxidentale by Nahua armies and colonists as they expanded from their homeland in the Zacaco. Through the long history of the region, conversion to Tlecoyanism has often gone hand in hand with the process of assimilation to Nahua culture undertaken by many native peoples of southern Oxidentale over the thousands of years of Nahua rule there. Tlecoyanist ideas were also spread along maritime trade routes to Malaio and the Ozeros countries beginning in the 15th century. In modern-day Zacapican, the state is secular and divorced from the Tlecoyanist clergy and its religious affairs. However, Tlecoyanism remains by far the most widespread religion in southern Oxidentale and is deeply engrained within Zacapitec culture and one of the world's major international faiths.
In Tlecoyanist mythology, a benevolent fire god known as the Flame (๐ ๐ ช๐ ฎ๐ ผ๐ ๐ , Cuezatzin) or more commonly as Lord Fire (๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ๐ ฐ๐ ๐ ๐ ธ, Xiuhtotecuiyo), a god who belongs to a broader pantheon of primordial gods and mythical figures which Tlecoyanists recognize but do not worship, is believed to have secretly gifted blessed fire (๐ ฎ๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ฒ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ๐ ญ, Tlateochihualtletl) to a race of animalistic proto-humans who lived in caves and had white pupils and rough scaly skin. This imbued them with fiery souls and caused their skin to become soft and their eyes to darken which allowed them to leave the caves in which they lived. However, the other primordial gods discovered Lord Fire's violation of the natural order and attempted to destroy him and return humanity to its soulless, animalistic form. A dying Lord Fire spoke to wanderer named Tleyacapantli, who became his messenger to the humans who had begun to build the first civilization amidst the wild lands. Tleyacapantli told the humans that Lord Fire could no longer sustain the fire within their souls which kept them from death or devolution, and taught them to command fire of their own to sustain themselves and save the first civilization. In carrying the word of Lord Fire and saving the tribes of man Tleyacapantli became the first Fire-Bringer (๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ, Tlecoyani), a messianic figure serving as prophet of fire and savior of humanity. Out of gratitude for Lord Fire, the tribes of man struck an eternal pact with Lord Fire to keep the god alive through sacrifice and ritual in exchange for his continued protection and patronage of mankind. The Tlecoyanist scriptures and sacred codices (๐ ฏ๐ ธ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ, Teoamoxtli) are taken as the word of the Tlecoyani relaying knowledge of the divine, detailing the creation of the universe, the pantheon of gods and sprits including Lord Fire and his enemies, as well as the requests and wishes of Lord Fire for humanity which serve as the outline for Tlecoyanist practice and belief.
History
Beliefs
Creation Story
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The cosmology and belief system of Tlecoyanism establishes a fundamentally unjust dualistic world in which positive constructive forces (๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ , Yecyotl) are perpetually undermined and worn down by destructive forces of decay or evil (๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ก, Poyotl). It is believed that the creation of the universe broke the neutral balance of the un-existing void and so brought both yecyotl and poyotl into being with yecyotl being initially ascendant. Tlecoyanist eschatology therefore predicts that the universe will end with poyotl eventually reducing yecyotl back down to nothing, destroying everything that exists and in so doing also eliminating the destructive forces themselves in a return to the neutral void. The deities, demigods and spirits of the diverse Tlecoyanist pantheon are in general neither purely positive nor entirely negative and act according to both yecyotl and poyotl at different times. This is illustrated by the dual supreme being of the pantheon, Lord Sun (๐ ฏ๐ ๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ฏ๐ ๐ ฐ, Tonatiuhtecuhtli) the ruler of the day and Lady Moon (๐ ฎ๐ ฒ๐ ๐ ฏ๐ ฉ๐ ฎ๐ , Metztlicihuatl) the ruler of the night who represent the force of yecyotl and poyotl respectively and who were once part of a neutral whole called Teotlachihualli, which is translated as "original creation" or "the first child". The splitting of Teotlachihualli into Tonatiuhtecuhtli and Metztlicihuatl is the event which created the universe, which some modern Tlecoyanists associate with the scientific theory of the big bang.
As positive and negative energies proliferated in the new universe after its creation, the primordial world took shape and with it the first generation of deities took shape. These were for the most part cruel and unforgiving deities representing uncontrolled forces of nature which often clashed against one another. The course of this primeval turmoil is what determined the formation of wild animals and plants and the innate essence of the untamed natural world. A race of proto-humans (๐ ฏ๐ ๐ ญ๐ ๐ ๐ , Inayatlacatli) emerged as part of this world, and were not created by any particular deity but were instead shaped by the competing natural forces of the primordial gods and were no different than any wild animal. The Inayatlacatli are said to have had blackened skin covered in scales and rough patches, protruding snouts, long tails and eyes with white pupils which could not bear to look at the daytime sky. They lived inside caves and ventured out at night to forage, moving mostly on all fours. The Inayatlacatli were just as intelligent as later humans, and could use implements and devise tricks but were possessed of such savagery that they could think only of survival and did not produce art or try to improve their tools or transform their surroundings as humans do. Despite this, they were the most clever of the savage creatures on the surface of the world which caused Lord Fire, the most creative of the primordial gods, to take an interest in them and later develop an affinity for the Inayatlacatli. This caused the primordial fire god to become saddened by the daily suffering of the proto-humans within the savagery of the beastly world.
In his grief, the Lord Fire gave the Inayatlacatli a portion of his immortal essence which is referred to as the Tlateochihualtletl or blessed flame which came to reside within the hearts of the Inayatlacatli as a form of soul which none of the other animals of the wild world possessed. Lord Fire's gift transformed the Inayatlacatli into Tlacatl, humans, as the fire within them burned away their scales and the hair of their bodies leaving a smooth skin behind, reducing their tails and snouts to nothing and causing their all-white eyes to turn dark at the center which finally allowed them to leave the caves during the day as they could now withstand the light of the sun. The elevated souls of these first humans would rejoin with the greater essence of Lord Fire upon death, thus allowing the humans to enter the divine realm rather than remaining within the mundane. When Lord Fire's deeds were discovered by the other gods, they were furious. Divinity among the beasts, the violation of the natural order and most of all the entry of the first human souls to the divine realm were deep insults in their view. As a result, the gods of the primordial world attempted to destroy what humanity had become only for Lord Fire to intervene and protect the humans from harm. Instead, the other deities attacked Lord Fire from all sides, tearing off parts of his being and scattering them across the world forming terrible wildfires, and throwing his blood across the sky to form the stars and the Milky Way galaxy. Most terrible of all, the other deities were able to reduce Lord Fire's immortality and the fire-god began to perish.
It was in this moment that Lord Fire's voice reached a human of the tribes of man named Tleyacapantli, and told him about creation, the other gods and what had happened to him, in an attempt to prepare the humans to survive the onslaught of the natural gods. Lord Fire also gave to Tleyacapantli his final gift to humans. As the deity was dying, he could no longer sustain the Tlateochihualtletl within humans and if these went out, the humans would revert to their beastly form. Therefore Lord Fire gave to the humans him ultimate power, mastery over fire, by teaching Tleyacapantli to make fire himself and bid him to teach the other humans as well. This would allow the humans to warm and enkindle their own souls without the strength of Lord Fire. The tribes of humanity, stricken with grief and a deep gratitude for what the god had done, were compelled by Tleyacapantli's words to devote themselves to saving Lord Fire from death by presenting sacrifices of their own. Animal and human sacrifice, as well as other forms of ritual sacrifice, within braziers (๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ธ๐ ๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ๐ , Apantlecaxitl) containing the wild natural fire which was part of the scattered body of Lord Fire. These sacrifices nurtured the god turned mortal, filling him with the borrowed vitality offered by his human worshippers. It was so that the Sacred Covenant was struck, as the humans vowed to repay the gift of soul and Lord Fire's sacrifice for the humans through sacrifice of their own to sustain the god, providing Lord Fire a form of immortality to replace that which was destroyed by the anger of the other gods. For his deeds, Tleyacapantli was named Tlecoyani, Fire-Bringer, a messenger of the fire god and a prophet of the faith of humans. Tlecoyanists believe all humans entered into this pact with Lord Fire, and that many tribes quickly grew complacent with their duties to keep the god alive and save themselves from annihilation and barbarism inflicted by the other gods. The role of the Tlecoyanis, Tleyacapantli and his successors through the ages, has therefore been to remind humans of their covenant. Tleyacapantli, who modern academics believe to be a mostly mythical figure, is credited as the founder of the Tlecoyanist temple and faith and the first head of this temple. The next Tlecoyani would not come for many centuries afterward, as Lord Fire only musters the strength to speak to a chosen human when his faithful need correcting in their ways, and so most heads of the temple were not Tlecoyani but merely devout and non-prophetic humans charged by their predecessors and by Lord Fire to uphold the human covenant with the fire god. These heads of the temple are called Tlatocateopixqui (๐ ๐ ธ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ฐ๐ ญ), and are the paramount leaders of the Tlecoyanist faith.
Apocalypse
In Tlecoyanist cosmology, the world is seen in a generally pessimistic outlook with an underlying belief that the inexorable wear of decaying forces and natural entropy will inevitably bring down everything that exists and then creation itself. There are many possible and prophesized versions of the apocalypse in Tlecoyanism that have been debated amongst theologians and religious scholars for centuries. Apocalypse stories in scripture falls into two distinct categories, these being the doom of humanity and the doom of the universe. It is made clear in the scripture that the struggle of humanity against the gods of nature is only a small part of the universal struggle between Yecyotl and Poyotl, the struggle of the created universe against the entropy breaking it down. Therefore, the eventual end of human civilization at the hands of the gods will only be a small part of the overall decay of the universe which will itself end long after the last human has been consumed by the savagery of the wild world. The doom of the entire universe is generally mysterious and esoteric within scripture, and the mainstream dogma within Tlecoyanism asserts that it would be impossible for a human to know of the universal end and condemns anyone who claims to have such knowledge. This is because the scripture suggests that even the gods themselves are swept up by the greater universal forces of yecyotl and poyotl and have themselves little knowledge of how the universe will end, and that therefore not even the patron Lord Fire and by extension his messengers on earth the Tlecoyanis could claim to know with certainty details of the ultimate doom.
By contrast, the human doom is not only more detailed and widely discussed than the universal doom, it indeed features as one of the central topics of theological discussion and of general sermons and aspects of daily worship. The threat of the destruction of humanity at the hands of the gods is a key feature of the creation story and a founding principle of the Tlecoyanist temple organization. Indeed, the object of Tlecoyanist worship is in almost all cases directly related to forestalling the end of days for humanity through the sustenance of Lord Fire which serves to ward off the advances of the other primordial gods of nature. The exact process by which the other gods could eventually destroy humanity is varied, and debate continues as to whether the death of Lord Fire would lead to the reversion of humans back to their original beastly form as the Inayatlacatli, a devolution into a new savage form of humanity based on the current human form, or the outright destruction of all human beings without any surviving wild form. However, there is consensus among scholars that the human doom at the hands of the gods would first manifest through the degradation of human society, itself a symptom of the largely invisible weakening of the fire-like soul within each individual human. Such a form of apocalypse is temporarily preventable, as a spiritual mobilization to revitalize the collective soul of humanity and repair society could postpone the threat of the human doom should it begin to appear. Because of this, the exact date and condition of the human doom is not set or determined within any scripture and is the subject of active speculation as the process of the apocalyptic prelude could begin at any time, and in turn be postponed, making it as difficult to predict as the course of temporal events.
Another possible course of the human doom, less often depicted but prominent within the scripture nonetheless, is the threat of Tliltlechichi (๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ๐ ๐ ฏ) whose name means "Black Fire Dog". This is the name given to the destructive aspect of Lord Fire, as even as a mostly yecyotl, positive entity, the fire-god nonetheless possesses a dark aspect. Tliltlechichi is the cause of human madness, insanity and physical deformities which are believed to be caused by the partial or total corruption of the fire-soul within a person caused by the influence of Tliltlechichi. Visions of black dogs are especially ominous for this reason and are said to be warnings of impending madness, evil human deeds or an incident of mass hysteria. Tliltlechichi himself is said to have been a part of Lord Fire that was too difficult to destroy when the gods had set upon his body, and so was buried whole under the ground and now resides deep within the earth. He is consumed by an eternal rage and his outbursts and attempts to escape his prison are said to be the cause of earthquakes and volcanic events. Should Tliltlechichi ever escape, scripture asserts that he will gather together the dismembered pieces of Lord Fire's body and rejoin them to his canine body and become a new deity named Lord Eclipse (๐ ๐ ฒ๐ ๐ ๐ , Cualohuani) who would be an inverted form of the benevolent Lord Fire. Should Cualohuani come into being through Tliltlechichi's escape from beneath the earth, humanity would either be destroyed by his fire or corrupted into madness resulting in a form of savagery similar but distinct from the devolved state which would occur should the other gods defeat Lord Fire before Tliltlechichi can escape.
Practices
The focus of Tlecoyanist worship revolves around sacrifice and keeping up the eternal covenant with Lord Fire. This may take a different form depending on one's station within society, and can carry very specific responsibilities but can generally be divided into two categories of worship along the lines of the clergy and the non-clergy. The role of a clergyman (๐ ฒ๐ ๐ ฎ, Teohua) is to devote themselves entirely to the service of Lord Fire, sacrificing their lives and their deaths for his cause. In effect, these priests must sever their worldly ties and give their waking life over to the service of Lord Fire which can take various forms.
Temple
The temple hierarchy of the Tlecoyanist Teohua has multiple tiers and possesses various specialized roles within it. Monks living in seclusion called Teopixqui (๐ ๐ ธ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ) who primarily tend to the holy fires within temples and study scripture, to the preachers called Totahtzin (๐ ๐ ช๐ ฎ๐ ญ๐ ฐ) which conduct public sermons for the faithful non-clergy and are responsible for converting non-believers to the faith. A special caste of Teopixqui also exist, known as sacred scribes of Teoamoxicuiloani (๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ธ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ฎ), who were historically responsible for copying and maintaining recorded scripture as well as writing down and distributing new pieces of approved scripture between temples. All Teohua are under the authority of the Tlatocateopixqui, the High Priest, who is elected by the body of all high ranking Teohua and must always be a committed Teopixqui monk. The role of this Tlatocateopixqui is to adjudicate disputes within the clergy and serve as the final word on religious matters that have not yet been settled, and has some leeway to interpret and even amend scripture within this role. A theoretical fifth type of religious figure exists, that of the Tlecoyani themselves, a messenger of Lord Fire. Only one Tlecoyani may exist at a time, and their appearance is extremely rare and may occur typically once or twice every millennium. Complex criteria exist to confirm a Tlecoyani, as once a Tlecoyani has been accepted by the body of those teohua present they become the supreme head of all Tlecoyanist temples and a sort of living saint of the religion until the time of their deaths, which will unseat by default any reigning Tlatocateopixqui within any recognized denomination of Tlecoyanism.