Tlaltecuhtli, «The earth itself, lord and lady», is one of the forty-five energies that rule the days, trecenas and veintenas of the Mexica calendar. The surface of the earth: she who devours and she who gives birth.

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

Why is the full entry on Tlaltecuhtli only in Spanish?

Because the entry on Tlaltecuhtli 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

Tlaltecuhtli

The earth itself, lord and lady

What it rules

The surface of the earth: she who devours and she who gives birth.

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 Tlaltecuhtli. 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 mundo hecho de su cuerpo
La que devora y la que pare
Segundo del día
De dónde viene su imagen

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

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, «Tlaltecuhtli», The energies. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/energy/tlaltecuhtli/

The name

Tlaltecuhtli is «lord of the earth», though the gender is a real tension in the sources: the figure appears masculine and feminine, human-shaped and animal-shaped, and the Florentine Codex itself treats it both ways.