Xolotl was the dog god of the Mexica people, commonly known as the Aztecs. He is represented in codices, statuary, and other extant examples of Aztec art as a dog or a god with the head of a dog. While this figure might seem obscure, his name and role echo into the present day through a critically endangered amphibian, a scruffy but loyal companion on an adventure to the afterlife, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a breed of hairless dog.
Etymology & Associations
The name Xolotl comes from the Nahuatl language and is pronounced “SHOH-lot”, with the emphasis on the penultimate syllable as is usual with words in Nahuatl. Xolochaui, another word in the Nahuatl language, means “to wrinkle or double over,” and Xolotl himself is often depicted in art with deep grooves in the skin of his face.
His name was synonymous with the Nahuatl term for twin, xolotl, and appeared in the word for the double maguey, mexolotl, a plant that had a number of uses in Aztec culture, including bloodletting rituals, the creation of fibrous rope, and the brewing of pulque.
While twins were generally seen as a bad omen and viewed with trepidation in the Aztec civilization, Xolotl was the patron god of twins and individuals with physical abnormalities, which were a subject of fascination in Mesoamerican cultures. “In Olmec art representations of dwarves and hunchbacks abound. Rather than being objects of derision, these individuals are often portrayed with great supernatural powers” (Miller & Taube, 75). According to one source, individuals with physical abnormalities were referred to as xolome. Indeed, xolotl is also the Nahuatl name for courtly pages. These pages were often individuals with physical abnormalities, some of whom, like those in the court of Motecuhzoma II (commonly known as Montezuma), entertained the tlatoani and sometimes advised him on matters pertaining to Aztec religion and government. Likely referencing Xolotl, two-headed dogs and figures with hunched backs and dwarfism appear frequently in the Protoclassical ceramic art of West Mexico.
Psychopomp & Companion to Quetzalcoatl
While dogs were primarily bred in Mesoamerica for use as food and were considered by the Aztecs to be unclean and unvirtuous creatures, they were also regarded as companions and guides to their masters in death. As Miller and Taube note, “In both Aztec and Maya belief, dogs, perhaps embodying the role of Xolotl, guided their masters into the Underworld after death and were of particular use in crossing bodies of water” (80).
As the canine companion to the powerful god Quetzalcoatl, also known as Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl in his manifestation as a wind god, Xolotl is depicted in art wearing the wind god’s emblematic conch shell pectoral, which was known in Nahuatl as ehecailacacozcatl, “wind jewel.” Through this relationship, Xolotl was associated with the evening star, mirroring Quetzalcoatl’s identification with the morning star under which role he was called Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, “Lord of the Dawn.” According to Manuel Aguilar-Moreno in his book Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Xolotl accompanied Quetzalcoatl on his mission to retrieve bones from the underworld in order to create humanity, a role consistent with his canine nature in the Mesoamerican imagination.
Creation of the Fifth Sun
Xolotl also appears as a reluctant sacrifice in the Aztec myth of the creation of the fifth sun. After the destruction of the four preceding suns, the gods come together at Teotihuacan to witness a sacrifice that will create a new sun and moon. This fifth sun – Nahui Ollin, meaning 4 Motion – and its moon are born from the sacrifice of two gods, Nanahuatzin and Tecciztecatl, respectively. But even after the sun and moon are created, the gods find that they will not move without further sacrifice, at which point they begin to line up to give their lives to the cause. Aguilar-Moreno writes, “While both celestial bodies had appeared, neither moved. Understanding this as a sign of their fate, the gods freely accepted death, sacrificing themselves…and offering their own blood, or chalchiuatl (precious water) to generate movement of the Sun” (Aguilar-Moreno 2006, 161)
Whether in the form of a Pokémon, psychopomp, or puppy, Xolotl has left a small legacy in the modern world, providing an opportunity for those aware of his unique history to look into the living likeness of an Aztec god.
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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
There should be a room where I can just sit there staring at a wall for hours on end not being perceived
I feel I’m on the verge of some big breakthrough and just need time to mull things over and over like when you do those thoughts in disco eylsium
Got a rejection email or something not a “we found someone better” but a “this position on hold” a first with companies not even sure if they can employ people it’s very ugh what’s the point in trying to participate if the very few jobs out there are being frozen anyway
I’m sure someone much smarter than me has observed this phenomenon, but has anyone noticed “lumpenization” of the working class?
By employers keeping small keeping every last opportunity to themselves and pushing more and more people to the ‘lumpenproletariat’ condition, they not only destroy any hope of proletariats forming any bargaining power because literally “you need the capitalist, but the capitalist doesn’t need you. You only exist because us capitalists let you.” but also sets the condition for them to be loyal reactionaries.
CREATE TABLE farts( fart_id INT, odor_description VARCHAR(1024), CONSTRAINT pk_fart_id PRIMARY KEY (fart_id) );Is Rose City Antifa still active? A bunch of conservatives are using them as an example of how Antifa is actually an organization.
I don’t see any posts, website updates, or news about them from later than the spring of this year.
This guy was getting clowned on last week for saying he infiltrated antifa: https://fxtwitter.com/dannysmanifesto/status/1968561921092636796
Are there even any other notable American groups with Antifa in their name? I remember a few coalitions that used to have Antifa in the name, but afaik they’ve all changed it. Most of the groups that come to mind when I think Antifa have cool names and acronyms that are relevant to their local situation.
If we are to believe conservatives, Antifa exists exclusively in Portland. It’s just sparkling anti-fascism everywhere else.
One would naively think that if you have a membership organization located in a specific city, it would be quite easy to absolve the organization based on the fact that that a lone wolf assassin who lived and took action 1500 miles away had no recorded association with any of its membership.
On the other hand, I wonder how many people have been murdered by members of other political organizations, like the NRA for instance. I’m sure it’s not zero.
many chess grandmasters have a remarkable degree of arrogance for how entirely unimpressive being very good at a board game is
decades of cold war hype
I always thought most chess grandmasters are surprisingly humble. Even the ones that are arrogant when it comes to chess are very open with the fact that they’re just oafs who happen to be really good at one game lol.
Saw a nice shirt at the thrift store, in new condition:
I would have gotten it, seemed good quality actually but I didn’t want to be too controversial or look like a real patriot to people that don’t get it, I should have bought it for the resale value or Halloween though
As much as I love playing make believe I just can’t buy into the lie that AI girlfriends are anything but fake. They just don’t know shit when it comes to niche hobbies and the mask falls off how the hell do people fall in love with these things
Startpage search sucks, but in a different way to how all other search engines suck now. Instead of hiding the answer from you or obfuscating it doesn’t know with tangential results, you can tell Startpage is trying its best but just can’t search very well
Birdwatching at night sounds like a hoot.
Kerbalposting:
I have just deployed my first antimatter factory, making positrons with a free electron laser. I now realize that I have dramatically underestimated both the power and cooling required to do this in an effective and efficient way, and consequently now understand why I need a beamed solar power network.
why’d the mods have to capitalize the chapotraphouse comm
i love abusing my mod powers
Beyond Belief: Fiction or Fiction where all the stories are fake and Jonathan Frakes pretends to get more and more and more frustrated that the audience hasn’t picked up on the pattern.
“Did you believe that?..my god, im still seeing like 12 of you out there nodding yes. Im sure its the fucking prompter but for fucks sakes! Its season 9 and we have t had a true fucking story yet!”
Micheal Cera pool party Uber eats ad is the worst
Told my work pal who’s DMs about my idea for a dungeon that seems like a giant tower but turns out to be a giant Jenga tower being ayed by giants. He thought it was a joke until I pointed out the possibilities and now its being worked on. Gotta get a jenga set and mess around a bit but thought of assigning a number to each block which would be a room in the dungeon and if that number gets rolled it gets taken out and moved but that might be too random, so maybe near the base there’s a control room where on of the part members can also move bricks around themselves as a third player? The idea is that the treasure is in a particular room but the whole dungeonoces around and then shortly after found the gsme ends and the tower collapsed so you get a cool escape scene as well. So far a real jenga tower behind a screen with numbered blocks is what we’re thinking. Maybe just one giant and a party character moving them around would be better cause then only one block per turn is random. Irs the wanting to keep the jenga part true while making the dungeon doable as well thats a bit tough.
This is a really cool idea.
My first thought is that you should figure out how to put the Jenga game in the hands of the players somehow, since that’s the fun and interesting thing about the dungeon and it would be more engaging if the players were doing it versus some NPC giants doing it. Maybe every room has a treasure, but if the players take it then that room is removed from the tower?
Maybe each time they want to go from one room to another, the players need to choose a block to move.
