Tezcatlipoca was a central deity in Aztec religion. He is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war and strife. Tezcatlipoca is often portrayed as a jaugar, His name, "smoking mirror," comes from the black obsidian used by Aztec priests for looking into the future. Huitzilopochtli was a god of war, sun, human sacrifice and the patron of the city of Tenochtitlan. He was also the national god of the Mexicas of Tenochtitlan. Huitzilopochtli was a tribal god and a legendary wizard of the Aztecs. Originally he was of little importance to the Nahuas, but after the rise of the Aztecs, Tlacaelel reformed their religion and put Huitzilopochtli at the same level as Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, and Tezcatlipoca, making him a solar god. A cuauhxicalli or quauhxicalli was an altar-like stone vessel made of lava used by the Aztecs to contain human hearts extracted in sacrificial ceremonies.
