The fire that was here before the gods and remains at the centre
Warning
He is the fire that also takes
Resonance
Those keeping a hearth elders those at a turning of the year
Symbols
Fire serpentTurquoise diademBrazierFire drillFifty two year bundle
Mythology Summary
Xiuhtecuhtli, Lord of the Turquoise, is the Aztec fire: the oldest of the gods, the Huehueteotl whose face is the wrinkled face of the hearth, the fire at the centre of the house and of the world, the lord of the year and of turquoise. The Florentine Codex and the Codex Borbonicus show him in his brazier with the turquoise diadem, honoured in the month Izcalli. At the end of every fifty-two-year cycle the New Fire was drilled on the chest of a sacrificed captive on the Hill of the Star, Huixachtitlan, and the people waited on the roofs to see whether it caught and the world would continue.
Modern Practice
Xiuhtecuhtli is the hearth, the kept flame, the turn of the year and the courage to start a fire after everything has gone out. He is worked in ordinary domestic fire rather than in spectacle, and the historical New Fire with its captive is recorded here and not recommended.