The
Aztec god of war and of the sun, it is believed that he lead the
Aztlan people to their new home of
Tenochtitlan and became the chief god of that Aztec city.
One of the Huitzilopochtli (pronounced wee-tsee-loh-poch'-tlee) myths is that he slew his sister Coyolxauhqui and tossed her head into the sky where it became the moon.
Huitzilopochtli was represented as a hummingbird, or with the feathers of a hummingbird on his head and his left leg, with a black face and holding a snake, and a mirror. His name means "Hummingbird of the South", "He of the South", or "Hummingbird on the Left". The Aztecs believed that dead warriors came back to life as hummingbirds and that the south was the left side of the world.