Tlālchitōnatiuh
Open-knowledge reference entry

Tlalchitonatiuh (Classical Nahuatl: tlālchitōnatiuh; "sun of the red earth" or "red sun of the earth", from tlālli, earth, soil; chīltic, red; tōnatiuh or tōnatih, sun) was a Mesoamerican deity associated with the setting sun, when the stars start to appear in the night sky. Tlalchitonatiuh was worshipped among many Mesoamerican cultures including Mayans, but originated from the Toltec civilization.
Along with Xolotl, Tlalchitonatiuh reigned in the sixteenth trecena of the Tonalpohualli. According to Codex Ríos, he is represented symbolically as a young man with the sun over his shoulders and death and darkness beneath his feet, representing the setting sun. In the Borgia Codex Tlalchitonatiuh was represented as Tlalchitecuhtli devouring the solar mortuary bag.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tlālchitōnatiuh” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.