Tōxcatl

[1] The Festival of Toxcatl was dedicated to the god Tezcatlipoca and featured the sacrifice of a young man who had been impersonating the deity for a full year.

According to Fray Diego Durán the name Toxcatl derives from the Nahuatl verb toxcahuia meaning "wither from thirst".

The rituals which the Aztecs carried out during the feast of Toxcatl are described by Bernardino de Sahagún in the Florentine Codex, in Fray Duráns description of the gods and rites, and in the chronicle of Juan Bautista Pomar.

[5] He walked about the city playing the flute, smoking tobacco and smelling flowers, and people would salute him as the living image of the god.

In the month of Huey Tozoztli which preceded Toxcatl, he would be ritually wed to four maidens who impersonated the goddesses Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Atlatonan and Huixtocihuatl, and he lived with them for twenty days.

A lifesize figure of Huitzilipochtli was made of amaranth dough then painted, dressed and decorated with clothes and gold jewelry that were symbols of the deity.

The female attendants who had ground the seeds, made the dough and dressed the sculpture had fasted for a year as part their ritualistic role.

Michel Graulich, who advocates a different calendrical correlation, places Toxcatl in the fall and sees the festival as a harvest feast celebrating the abundance of maize.

Olivier (2003) stresses the importance of the actions of the tlatoani in the ritual and sees the feast as a way for the ruler to offer a worthy sacrifice to the lord of rulership, Tezcatlipoca.