ATLAUA = “LORD OF THE LAKE BEACHES”
- Area of Worship: Chinampanecs of Cuitlauac.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
The lower parts of his extremities are striped blue, like those of Uitzilopochtli. In the Sahagun MS. (Palacio) he wears the domino mask edged round with small white circles (the “stellar face-painting”) and the mouth and chin are blackened or reddened. The headdress resembles the flag used as Uitzilopochtli’s symbol for the panquetzaliztli festival. [[264]]He carries the shield of Uitzilopochtli, with the five balls of eagle’s down, one half of the weapon being coloured red, like blood, and in his right hand he holds an instrument which, from comparison with another Sahagun MS. (Bib. Laurenz.) we know to be a rattle. In this picture symbols expressive of singing flow from his mouth.
NATURE AND STATUS
He was a god of the inhabitants of the floating gardens of Lake Xochimilco, the tribe known as the Chinampanecs, and from the “stellar face-painting” he wore he must at some time have been identified by one of the early hunting tribes with one or other of the stars. His possession of Uitzilopochtli’s shield is perhaps further proof of his stellar association. He may have been one of the Centzonuitznaua (see Uitzilopochtli—“Myths”).