Winter Solstice and Huitzilopochtli

David Bowles
3 min readDec 22, 2018

Today’s the winter solstice, so …. Happy birthday, Huitzilopochtli! Mā panquetz!

For the Nahuas (“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…

David Bowles

A Mexican American author & translator from South Texas. Teaches literature & Nahuatl at UTRGV. VP of the Texas Institute of Letters.