Talk:Tepoztēcatl

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Tepozteco, the historical town of Mexico, and Tezcatzontecatl could redirect here. Expand it!

Redirect Ometochtli here

Ometochtli is the calendrical name of Tepoztecatl, perhaps that page should redirect here instead? Simon Burchell (talk) 19:19, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Often find it tricky deciding when to merge or separate mesoamerican mythological or legendary figures, when they have sometimes dozens of epithets and names applied by different localities, traditions and primary documents. More often than not it seems that neither primary sources nor secondary commentaries agree amongst themselves about the degree to which all these multiple mentions & depictions are aspects of essentially the same entity.

In this case, the two here are sometimes granted as more-or-less analogues for one another by some sources I've seen, however other accounts highlight differences in form and function.

For eg, I'd thought Tepoztecatl was primarily or originally a supernatural figure local to Tepoztlan, and that the other main towns in the Tepozteco sierra—where the pulque/octli cult was practiced and first 'took off'—each had their own pulque deity. Tepoztecatl may have been the most prevalent or dominant one among these, but I think the Florentine codex for eg lists and treats these all separately, Tepoztecatl one among them. And, in addition to the supernatural aspect Tepoztecatl also appears as a (conflated) legendary culture-hero figure in some texts with some different narratives depending on the account.

For Ometochtli, in addition to being a calendrical name I've seen it described more as the generic or collective name for these various (regional?) pulque deities and religious functionaries (ie not specific to tepoztecatl only). The primeros memoriales also describes roles and rituals for the sacerdotes of each different local pulque diety, treating them differently but also calling each of them the 'priest of [ometochtli]-[toponym]'.

I can see some arguments for merging (if merged, maybe would make more sense the other way..?), but on balance I reckon there's sufficient scope & difference to have these stay as viable separate articles- while keeping the overlaps noted in the articles of course. Thoughts?

ps. One other point/question- I could be mistaken, but doesn't Tepoztecatl's name derive from the name of the town (tepoztlan), and not the other way around ? (ie town is not named after the deity). AFAIK all of these various pulque supernaturals' names are derived from the toponyms of the towns (and here tepoztecatl, the town and the mountains all have a nahua word for "copper" as their base, I understand).--cjllw ʘ TALK 14:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking at my references more closely, particularly the Tepozteco miniguide, it looks like Ometochtli is the calendrical name for all the gods grouped under the Centzon Totochtin, so on second thoughts it certainly shouldn't be merged here, possibly with the Centzon Totochtin, if at all.

It seems logical that the god name derives from the place name. Apparently the glyph for the city-state of Tepoztlan was a copper axe above a hill, translated as the place of copper. However, the copper axe glyph could have been used as shorthand for the name of Tepoztecatl and the miniguide says that a writer by the name of Silvia Garcia interprets the copper-axe-over-hill glyph as meaning the place of Tepoztecatl.

Dioses Prehispánicos de México by Adela Fernández lists Tepoztecatl as meaning originario de Tepoztlán, the god named from the place. I haven't read Silvia Garcia, but Adela Fernández gives the impression that she knows what she's talking about, so I would go with that interpretation. Simon Burchell (talk) 23:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, we'll keep these two as separate articles, then. At this stage I'm uncertain whether centzontototchtin and ometochtli can be regarded as synonymous for all intents and purposes, so could go either way on that. I suppose for the interim we'd see how each article can be developed, and if it looks like they're proceeding along similar lines then possibly merge them. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)