King Xolotl

For other uses, see Xolotl (disambiguation).

Xolotl (or Xólotl; Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈʃolotɬ]) was a 13th-century Chichimec leader, a Tlatoani. He was named after Aztec god Xolotl.^[1]

Xólotl
Tlatoani of Chichimecas
Reign	c. 1157–1204
Successor	Nopaltzin
Born	c. 1130?
Died	c. 1204 Tenayocan
Issue	Queen Cuetlaxochitzin King Nopaltzin

Chichimeca is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited the north of Mexico and southwestern United States.

By some historiographic traditions, Xolotl founded Tenayuca ca. 1224. Xolotl was succeeded by his son Nopaltzin who consolidated the Chichimec Kingdom. His daughter was Cuetlaxochitzin of Azcapotzalco, wife of the ruler Acolnahuacatl and mother of the famous Tezozomoc.^[2]

Upon the death of the king, the nobles from every part of the country assembled, to render to the body, due funeral honours. The corpse was adorned with various small figures of gold and silver, and placed in a chair made of gum copal and other aromatic substances, where it remained for five days. After which it was burned, according to the custom of the Chichimec's, and the ashes gathered in an urn of the hardest stone; which were exposed for forty days in a hall of the royal mansion, where the nobility daily thronged to honour the memory of their sovereign. It was afterwards carried to a cave in the neighbourhood of the city, with loud demonstrations of grief.^[3]

References

1. Coe, Sophie D. (1994). America's first cuisines. ISBN 0-292-71159-X
2. In the García Granados Codex the Azcapotzalco blood line is outlined in the following order: Maxtlacozcatl (Matlacohuatl), Chiconquiauitl, Tezcapoctli, Tehuehuactzin, Micacalcatl, Xiuhtlatonac, Acolnahuacatl and Tezozomoc; the Tlatelolco annals provide another list in which the first three and the two last names appear but misses the other three; the advantage of the second list is that these are the proposed dates in the article.
3. The history of ancient Mexico, from the foundation of that empire ..., Volume 1. By Thomas Francis Gordon.