Itzpapalotec, «Obsidian butterfly», is one of the forty-five energies that rule the days, trecenas and veintenas of the Mexica calendar. The threshold of the dark — and the trecena 1-Tochtli.

Why do you call Itzpapalotec 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 Itzpapalotec as to the other forty-four.

Why is the full entry on Itzpapalotec only in Spanish?

Because the entry on Itzpapalotec 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

Itzpapalotec

Obsidian butterfly

What it rules

The threshold of the dark — and the trecena 1-Tochtli.

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 Itzpapalotec. 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
El umbral
No es Itzpapálotl
En la cuenta
De dónde viene su imagen

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

The name

Obsidian butterfly: two things that do not go together. The lightest thing that flies, made of the stone you cut with. The name does not describe an animal — it describes a contradiction that holds.

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.

How to cite this page

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