TEZCATLIPOCA
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a... cat with wings? And maybe a serpent tale? Okay, what the fuck is going on here?
If you wouldn't be so judgy and just ask the ancient Aztecs, they'd have a pretty good explanation for you. Well, maybe. Even their explanations, derived from difficult-to-decipher codexes and drawings, are a little up in the air. But that doesn't make Tezcatlipoca any less awesome.
Throughout Mesoamerican cultures, you'll find the jaguar and its godly form stood for various ideas but it was always an important symbol. In Nahuatl, his name means "smoking mirror" and he stood for things like the night sky, war, sorcery, conflict, connection, and generally being multi-faceted. Tezcatlipoca's name is also used interchangeably with the word "jaguar" and it was said that he sometimes would appear black, sometimes yellow, sometimes a man, sometimes the animal itself. Look, it seems like people in the Dieties writer's room couldn't quite nail down what this dude was about and simply wanted a catch-all for something that was cool as hell. But is that so wrong? If it were, we would've never gotten the Fast & Furious franchise.
Speaking of FF, Tezcatlipoca is most known for his Vin Diesel-and-The Rock-level rivalry with other freaky god, Quetzalcoatl. In one creation myth, one of the Five Suns—the Sun of the Earth—was ruled by the Cat Man himself until feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl destroyed it. Although their rivalry is legendary, sometimes stories of these guys are also conflated, including Tezcatlipoca having a serpent tail in some depictions.
Tezcatlipoca also has analogs in Olmec and Mayan stories. But it doesn't stop there! Middle Eastern, Arabic and Chinese legends spin tales of winged jaguars, leopards and cats. Something about the alluring aspect of this very specific creature has intrigued people across cultures for millennia, and continues to do so. Interesting to note that these stories and the mercurial coloring of jaguars inspired the Aztec's usage of obsidian in carvings and sculptures for the dark, translucent eyes of creatures. Perhaps through this we can divine the meaning of seeing ourselves mirrored in something greater than us; or conversely, that legends wouldn't exist without us in the first place.
Check out the new Tall Trails Hat inspired by these fantastical felines and made in collaboration with Run Tri Bike! See you out there.
