Xolotl
Xolotl is the dog-headed twin of Quetzalcoatl, the evening star, the god of twins, doubles, monsters and the ballgame, and the guide who swims the river of the underworld with the dead.
Xolotl is a god, not a demon: he is the twin of Quetzalcoatl and a psychopomp, and the dog-headed and backward-footed imagery is his iconography rather than a mark of monstrosity in the Christian sense - the monstrosity he governs is the Nahua category of the odd, the doubled and the ill-formed. His Venus identification is native, not an overlay: Sahagun (Book 7) makes him the evening star as Quetzalcoatl is the morning star, so the planetary value is the one already in the tradition. Everything else astrological is overlay - the zodiac values Scorpio and Gemini, the tarot cards and the sabbat Samhain are modern Western, as are the Pluto and Mercury values - and the tradition's own account, the descent and the dog at the river, is primary. Gemini is chosen for the twins and is a modern joke as much as a correspondence.
Correspondences
- Planetary Correspondence
- Venus
Offerings
- Offerings
- WaterCopal incenseMaizePulqueObsidianBones
Sacred timing
- Sacred Timing
Symbols and forms
- Alternate Names
- The Evening StarTwin of QuetzalcoatlThe Dog Who GuidesLord of the Ballgame
- Gender Expression
- Fluid shapeshifter
- Titles
- The Evening StarThe Dog Who Guides the DeadTwin of QuetzalcoatlThe One Who Refused to Die
- Symbols
- Dog headBackward feetEvening starBallgame yokeFlint knife
Practice
- Invocation Approach
- ToneThe companion at the riverAddressXolotlEvening StarTwinRelationshipThe dog who swims the river with the deadWarningHe is the double and the double is not always kindResonanceThe dying those who keep the dead company twins and the misfit
- Modern Practice
Xolotl is the companion for dying and for keeping the dead company, for dogs, for the twin and the double, and for anyone whose shape does not fit the one they were given. Ballgame work and shapeshifting belong to him, as does the awkward honesty that he ran from death and was still taken.
Nature and meaning
- Domain
- The evening starThe journey of the deadDogsTwins and doublesMonstrosityThe ballgameFire and lightningShapeshifting
- Mythology Summary
Xolotl is the dog-headed twin of Quetzalcoatl, the evening star, the god of twins, doubles, monsters and the ballgame, and the guide who swims the river of the underworld with the dead. The Leyenda de los Soles in the Codex Chimalpopoca tells how, when the gods had to die for the fifth sun to move, Xolotl refused, wept until his eyes swelled, and hid himself as a double-stalked maize plant and then a double-stalked maguey and at last as the axolotl in the water, and was killed anyway - the axolotl still carries his name. Sahagun (Book 7) describes him as the evening star and the twin, and the dogs that were buried with the dead are his.
Details
One of 3,120 entries in the Grimoire — the whole library, every cross-reference, is free to take. Take the whole thing Is it wrong somewhere?
Referenced by 0
Nothing in the library points at this entry yet.
More in Deities
The entries either side of this one in the same catalogue.
All of Deities →New entries, when they land
Occasional notes when a section of the grimoire is added or revised. No account, no tracking across sites, and one line to leave.