Who is Huitzilopochtli?

Huitzilopochtli, «Hummingbird of the south», is one of the forty-five energies that rule the days, trecenas and veintenas of the Mexica calendar. The sun on its passage, the tutelary energy of the Mexica people.

Why is the full entry on Huitzilopochtli only in Spanish?

Because the entry on Huitzilopochtli 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

Huitzilopochtli

Hummingbird of the south

What it rules

The sun on its passage, the tutelary energy of the Mexica people.

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 Huitzilopochtli. 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
Un nacimiento portentoso
La guía de la migración
De dónde viene su imagen

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

A portentous birth

Huitzilopochtli is born of Coatlicue prodigiously — not by union with any man but from a ball of feathers she kept at her breast. He was born already formed and armed, exactly when his mother needed defending.

The guide of the migration

In Mexica memory, Huitzilopochtli was the one who ordered the people out of Aztlan to look for a new land. Through generations of wandering, he is said to have spoken through his priests, telling them when to move and where.

How to cite this page

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

The name

Huitzilopochtli is generally rendered «Hummingbird of the south» or «Left-handed hummingbird». For the Mexica the hummingbird was the bird of warriors transformed after death in battle: a tiny animal of extraordinary vitality.