Mesoamerican · Nahuatl and Spanish · 1545-1590
Florentine Codex
Bernardino de Sahagún with Nahua informants
A Franciscan's encyclopedia of Aztec religion, compiled from Nahua testimony in order to identify idolatry and suppress it. Indispensable and thoroughly compromised at once.
Read Florentine Codex in full at the linked edition →What this text attests · 5
| Name here | Rank given | # | Powers described |
|---|---|---|---|
| The war god | — | Born armed at Coatepec and destroying his siblings; the patron of the Mexica, with the feasts, the offerings and the temple described in Nahuatl by Nahua informants. | |
| Lord of the dead | — | Receives those who die of ordinary causes; his realm is a destination, not a sentence. | |
| Feathered serpent | — | Patron of priests, learning and the calendar; recovers the bones of the ancestors from the underworld. | |
| Lord of the smoking mirror | — | Sees all in his obsidian mirror; grants and withdraws fortune without appeal; drives Quetzalcoatl from Tula. | |
| Lord of the rains | — | The rains, the mountains and the storm; those who drown or are struck by lightning go to his paradise rather than to Mictlan. |
