One of the best references for the East Asian region in English is
J. J. M. de Groot’s The Religious System of China: Its Ancient
Forms, Evolution, History, and Present Aspect, Manners, Cus-
toms, and Social Institutions Connected Therewith (Leiden,
1892–1910). This six-volume study remains one of the best
standard references on traditional religious practices in
China. Leonardo Olschki’s The Myth of Felt (Berkeley,
Calif., 1949) contains a perceptive essay on the significance
of this material in traditional Mongol society. Articles by in-
ternational scholars documenting ritual use of textiles
throughout the Indonesian Archipelago are in Mattibelle
Gittinger, ed., Indonesian Textiles: Irene Emery Roundtable on
Museum Textiles, 1979 Proceedings (Washington, D.C.,
1980). Other Asian practices are dicussed in Alice Beck
Kehoe’s Shamans and Religion (Prospect Heights, Ill., 2000);
and Rosemary Crill, Steven Cohen, and Ruth Barnes, Court,
Temple, and Trade: Indian Textiles in the Tapi Collection
(Mumbai, India, 2002). References to textiles within the Ti-
betan context are in the five-volume catalog by the Newark
Museum, Catalogue of the Tibetan Collection and Other La-
maist Articles in the Newark Museum (Newark, N.J., 1950–
1971).
References to New World practices are in Laurie Adelson and Ar-
thur Tracht, Aymara Weavings: Ceremonial Textiles of Colo-
nial and Nineteenth-Century Bolivia (Washington, D.C.,
1983), and Ann Pollard Rowe and John Cohen, Hidden
Threads of Peru: Q’ero Textiles (Washington, D.C., 2002).
JOHN E. VOLLMER (1987 AND 2005)
TEZCATLIPOCA (“the smoking mirror”) was one of
the four Aztec creator gods who arranged the universe and
set the cosmic ages in motion through periodic celestial bat-
tles. Tezcatlipoca was sometimes cast as the supernatural an-
tagonist of Quetzalcoatl, the deity associated with cultural
creativity, urban order, and priestly wisdom. Yet Tezcatlipo-
ca has the most overwhelming power and protean personality
of any Aztec deity. Among his aspects were Itztli, a calendar
god; Tepeyolotl, an ancient jaguar-earth god; Ixquimilli-
Itztla-coaliuhqui, a god of punishment; and Omacatl, the
spirit of revelry. His many forms reflect the omnipotent
character of numinous forces in Aztec religion. The range of
Tezcatlipoca’s power is perhaps best represented in his desig-
nation as “the enemy on both sides.”
As in all pictorial representations of Mesoamerican dei-
ties, Tezcatlipoca’s costume contains elements crucial to his
identification. His primary emblem, a smoking mirror made
of obsidian, is often depicted as a circular disk with a shaft
through it and two curling forms representing smoke at-
tached to the edges. The mirror emblem is located either in
the deity’s headdress or in place of one foot. According to
one source, his foot was bitten off by an earth monster during
the struggle for the creation of the world. On the social level,
this emblem of the smoking mirror was intimately associated
with the divine power of the Aztec tlatoani (king).
Tezcatlipoca’s specific ritual significance was expressed
in the great annual festival of Toxcatl. In book 2 of Fray Ber-
nardino de Sahagún’s Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva
España (compiled 1569–1582; also known as the Florentine
Codex), we learn that for a full year prior to Toxcatl, Tez-
catlipoca’s ixiptla (deity impersonator) lived in the Aztec cap-
ital in complete splendor and honor, treated as a great lord.
Usually a captive warrior, the ixiptla had to be physically per-
fect in size, proportion, skin color, and beauty. By women
he was called “tall one, head nodder, handful of stars.” He
moved regally about the capital dressed in flower headdresses
and luxurious ornaments, carrying his smoking pipe and
flute and speaking graciously to all who greeted him. Twenty
days prior to his sacrifice at the height of Toxcatl, the ixiptla
was given four beautiful maidens in marriage. Following his
heart sacrifice to the Sun, his head was strung on the public
skull rack in the main ceremonial center of Tenochtitlán. Of
the dramatic turnabout in the life of Tezcatlipoca’s imper-
sonator, the Florentine Codex states: “And this betokeneth
our life on earth. For he who rejoiceth, who possesseth rich-
es, who seeketh and coveteth our lord’s sweetness, his gentle-
ness—riches and property—thus endeth in great misery. For
it is said, ‘None come to an end here upon earth with happi-
ness, riches and wealth’” (trans. Anderson and Dibble, vol.
2, p. 69).
According to the sacred historical traditions of the
Aztec, which trace back to the paradigmatic kingdom of Tol-
lan (900–1100 CE), Tezcatlipoca, a great sorcerer, drew un-
canny powers from his obsidian mirror in a struggle against
the Toltec priest-king Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl (“our young
prince the feathered serpent”). Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was
tricked into drunkenness and sexual incontinence, which led
to the utter collapse of his well-ordered city-state. Several pri-
mary sources suggest that the conflict between the great king
and his magical antagonist was centered on Tezcatlipoca’s
desire to replace animal and insect sacrifice with human sac-
rifice.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brundage, Burr C. The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World. Austin,- See especially Brundage’s insightful chapter, “The
Quality of the Numinous” (pp. 50–79), and his detailed dis-
cussion of the deity in “Tezcatlipoca” (pp. 108–126).
Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the
Things of New Spain, vol. 2, The Ceremonies. Translated by
Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Santa Fe, N.
Mex., 1951. This remarkable translation is one of the richest
sources for the study of Aztec religion, in that it contains a
detailed description, provided by Aztec elders shortly after
the Conquest, of the great ceremony of Toxcatl, which was
dedicated to Tezcatlipoca. It provides the reader with a vivid
example of the complex and contradictory forces symbolized
by Tezcatlipoca.
New Sources
Barjau, Luis. Tezcatlipoca: Elementos de una teología nahua (Tez-
catlipoca: Elements of a Nahua Theology). Mexico City, 1991.
Miller, Mary and Karl Taube. The Gods and Symbols of Ancient
Mexico and the Maya. London, 1993.
TEZCATLIPOCA 9093