The Throne Room

You step into a richly decorated room with a throne at the back. The emptiness of the room is haunting, it feels like there should be far more people here than just you and your guide. Access to the throne itself is cordoned off with ropes, but in front of the ropes it is a stand with information.

Obsidian Cross says: Being a website trying to get fun with its approach, nobody has ever sat on this throne. What meaning can you get out of that? I'll let you read the info on the sign now.

Tezcatlipoca in Aztec society.

The omnipresence of Tezcatlipoca is reflected in how he had roles to play at each level of society.

Tezcatlipoca was a symbol of royal authority, he is the one who the tlatoani addresses when accepting their title. Guilhem Olivier also argues Tezcatlipoca's ixiptla doubled as a stand in for the tlatoani during the Toxcatl sacrifice. The ixiptla of Tezcatlipoca was also known to attend banquets held by nobles.

Moving down the totem pole, Tezcatlipoca was patron of the school for commoners, as opposed to the school for nobility. He is responsible for the outcomes of battles, giving and taking the captives that increase the status of a warrior. This is why he is known as Necoc Yaotl, the enemy of both sides, for the whims of fate are his whims, meaning both good and bad fortune in battle is his doing.

And Tezcatlipoca was there for the slaves at the bottom rung. One of the days Tezcatlipoca rules is One Death, where slaves are honored as his children and abuse of them is punished with death. Of course as the reason they were enslaved, it is also said that the slave trader is favored by Tezcatlipoca.

On a broader scale, Tezcatlipoca was responsible for the current political reality by destablizing the prior one. That is why Aztec mythohistory places Tezcatlipoca as the cause of the Toltec's fall, and then as being responsible for omens predicting the Aztec's own fall. He was invoked by a failed rebellion against the Spanish for that reason. Tezcatlipoca is the one constant: change.

Where to now?