Xolotl (or Xólotl; ) was a 13th-century

Chichimec Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajío region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" t ...

leader, a ''

Tlatoani ''Tlahtoāni'' ( , "ruler, sovereign"; plural ' ) is a historical title used by the dynastic rulers of (singular ''āltepētl'', often translated into English as "city-state"), autonomous political entities formed by many pre-Columbian Nahuatl- ...

''. He was named after the god

Xolotl In Aztec mythology, Xolotl () was a god of fire and lightning. He was commonly depicted as a dog-headed man and was a soul-guide for the dead. He was also god of twins, monsters, death, misfortune, sickness, and deformities. Xolotl is the canin ...

, an eventual

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

god. Chichimeca is the name that the

Nahua peoples The Nahuas ( ) are a Uto-Nahuan ethnicity and one of the Indigenous people of Mexico, with Nahua minorities also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest Indigenous group in Mexico, as well as ...

of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-

nomad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

ic peoples who inhabited the north of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

. By some historiographic traditions, Xolotl founded

Tenayuca Tenayuca ( ) is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican archaeological site in the Valley of Mexico. In the Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology, Tenayuca was a settlement on the former shoreline of the western arm of Lake Texcoco. It was locate ...

ca. 1224. Xolotl was succeeded by his son Nopaltzin who consolidated the Chichimec Kingdom. His daughter was Cuetlaxochitzin of

Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( ; ; from ''wikt:azcapotzalli, āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + ''wikt:-co, -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a Boroughs of Mexico City, borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. Azcap ...

, wife of the ruler

Acolnahuacatl Acolnahuacatl (also Aculnahuacatl, Acolnahuacatzin) was a king of the Tepanec city of Azcapotzalco. He was likely a son of the king Xiuhtlatonac. He married princess Cuetlaxochitzin, daughter of king Xolotl. Their son was the famous king Tez ...

and mother of the famous Tezozomoc. 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.''The history of ancient Mexico, from the foundation of that empire'' ..., Volume 1. By Thomas Francis Gordon.

References

Tlatoque 13th-century monarchs {{Mexico-bio-stub