I guess it’s time to post the next Aztec icon in my coloring book called YE GODS!  THE AZTEC ICONS.  Looking almost Egyptian with the animal head, this one emphasizes dancing, music, and sex, which is a combination close to my heart. I must admit to identifying closely with this deity while drawing him. It’s full of the music of Aztec instruments and singing, all shown in graphic symbols. Details are based on various codices, but mostly Codex Borbonicus.

Don’t worry, you can still see or download the previous five icons by clicking on them in the list on the page for the coloring book.

ICON #6: HUEHUECOYOTL

(The Old Coyote)

To download this icon as a pdf file with a page of caption and model images from the Aztec Codices, right click here and select “Save Target (or Link) As.”  You can also download it in freely sizable vector drawings from the coloring book page.

HUEHUECOYOTL (Old Coyote) {hwe-hwe-koy-otł} is the trickster god of mischief and pranks and can lead one into trouble. (His tricks on other gods often backfired.) Patron of the day Lizard, along with Macuil Cuetzpallin (Five Lizard), he’s a deity of sexual indulgence, and with XOCHIPILLI and Macuil Xochitl (Five Flower), he’s also a deity of music, dance, storytelling, and choral singing. Personifying astuteness, pragmatism, worldly wisdom, male beauty, sexuality, and youth, he’s a balance of old and new, worldly and spiritual, male and female, and youth and old age. He is a shape-shifter, turning into animals or humans with sexual partners female or male of any species. Among his male lovers were XOCHIPILLI and Opochtli, god of hunting. He brings unexpected pleasure, sorrow, and strange happenings, and people appealed to him to mitigate or reverse their fates.