Ehécatl
The wind
What it rules
The wind that opens the way and brings what is needed.
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 Ehécatl. 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 templos redondos
- Lo que hace
- De dónde viene su imagen
Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.
The round temples
His temples were circular, unlike almost all the others. The explanation the sources give is simple: so the wind could go round them without meeting corners. Several survive in Mexico City.
What he does
The wind goes ahead: it sweeps the road of the tlaloque so the rain can come behind. That is why his feast and his presence come before the waters. In the accounts he appears as the one who brings what is missing.
How to cite this page
Alma Mexica, «Ehécatl», The energies. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/energy/ehecatl/
The name
Ehecatl is «wind». It is the second sign of the tonalpohualli and, at the same time, the wind face of Quetzalcoatl: the sources usually name him Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl. He is not a separate energy but that same presence when it blows.