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Winter Solstice and Huitzilopochtli
Today’s the winter solstice, so …. Happy birthday, Huitzilopochtli! Mā panquetz!
For the Nahuas of the Triple Alliance (“Aztecs”), the winter solstice was the birthday of Huitzilopochtli, patron god of the Mexica, lord of the sun and of combat.
It was a time of great celebration.
In the Mesoamerican calendar, this day fell at the end of the fifteenth 20-day month, Panquetzaliztli, meaning “lifting of banners,” from “pamitl” (“flag” or “banner” in its root form “pan-”) and “quetza” (“place” or “lift”). It marked the end of autumn, when the sun seemed weak.
To celebrate, the Daughters of Huitzilopochtli (a group of unmarried young women who had lived for a year in the temples) would bake a “tzoalli” or life-sized figure of Huitzilopochtli from amaranth dough and toasted maize, kneaded together with maguey nectar.
The tzoalli was decked out in paper garments by priests and then carried in a grand procession to the Great Temple. There the Sons of Huitzilopochtli received the effigy along with four hundred amaranth “bones” also prepared for the occasion.
The people of Tenochtitlan gathered in the sacred precinct. There would be much singing and dancing and praising the god, and then by the end of the day, the priests would consecrate the effigy and four hundred…
