Who is Huehuecóyotl?

Huehuecóyotl, «Old coyote», is one of the forty-five energies that rule the days, trecenas and veintenas of the Mexica calendar. Music, dance and the mischievous art of breaking rules.

Why do you call Huehuecóyotl an energy and not a god?

Because «god» translates badly. The Mexica did not separate the deity from the force it stands for as the European word does. «Energy» is not perfect either, but it does not carry that freight. It is a decision of this site, declared as one — and it applies to Huehuecóyotl as to the other forty-four.

Why is the full entry on Huehuecóyotl only in Spanish?

Because the entry on Huehuecóyotl quotes Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own sixteenth-century words. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation. The Spanish entry is linked from this page.

The energies

One of the forty-five energies

Huehuecóyotl

Old coyote

What it rules

Music, dance and the mischievous art of breaking rules.

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 Huehuecóyotl. 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
Música, danza y travesura
Parte del linaje de Tezcatlipoca
De dónde viene su imagen

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

Part of Tezcatlipoca's lineage

Huehuecoyotl belongs to the same family as Tezcatlipoca, and inherited from him the ability to transform. According to some sources he was Xolotl's only close companion — a bond that comes from both being, in their own way, outside the ordinary order.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «Huehuecóyotl», The energies. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/energy/huehuecoyotl/

The name

For the Mexica the coyote stood for cunning and worldly wisdom, not for menace. Calling him «old» takes nothing from his vitality — on the contrary, it evokes accumulated experience, the knowledge only time gives.