Cuauhtli Océlotl
Eagle and ocelot
What it rules
The two warrior orders — and the trecena 1-Ozomahtli.
Why «energy» and not «god»
Because «god» translates badly. The Mexica did not separate the deity from the force it stands for in the way the European word does, and calling them gods imports an idea that is not theirs. «Energy» is not perfect either, but it does not carry that freight. It is a decision of this site, and it is declared as one.
The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why
What you have read above is this project's own summary of Cuauhtli Océlotl. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.
We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.
In Spanish the entry carries:
- El nombre
- Los dos órdenes
- En la cuenta
- Por qué van juntos aquí
- De dónde viene su imagen
Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.
The name
Eagle and ocelot. The sources almost always name them together, and in that order. They are not two options to choose between: they are the two halves of one thing, like the day and the night of the same sky.
Where its image comes from
The images in this app are drawn for it, not traced. Below is what the sources say about his appearance, feature by feature. What they do not say is left blank: a declared gap is better than an invented feature.
The two orders
They were the two orders of distinguished warriors. The eagle looks from above, sees the whole field and drops in a straight line out of the sun. The ocelot moves low, among the grass and the shadow, and arrives unheard. One is the open strike; the other, the one that does not announce itself.
In the count
The trecena 1-Ozomatli, monkey, belongs to them. Both also appear among the day-signs: cuauhtli is the fifteenth and ocelotl the fourteenth, one after the other. They are together in the count just as they are together in the name.
Why they go together here
They could have been two entries. It was decided they should be one, because separating them would break exactly what defines them: that they are named as a pair. It is the same reason Ometeotl is not drawn as two loose figures.
How to cite this page
Alma Mexica, «Cuauhtli Océlotl», The energies. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/energy/cuauhtli-ocelotl/