Teotl


Teotl is a Nahuatl term that is often translated as "god". It may have held more abstract aspects of the numinous or divine, akin to the Polynesian concept of Mana. It is a central idea of Aztec religion. In Pipil mythology Teut is known as the creator and father of life. The nature of Teotl has been an ongoing discussion among scholars.
Aztec teteo or Teotl were seen to be active in the world. They spoke to their devotees. They both inhabited and oversaw elements of the landscape. They appeared in localized physical forms called forth by priests and practitioners. Aztecs called mountain-shaped dough figurines, humans, and bodies of water teotl. Teotl and their localized manifestations frequently appear together in Nahuatl accounts of ritualistic activity, especially in those that involve devotees constructing and venerating an embodiment of a deity. Localized embodiment could be human, dough, wood, or rock.
Teotl is a key to understanding the fall of the Aztec empire, because it seems that the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II and the Aztec people referred to Cortés and the conquistadors as Teotl. The Aztecs may have considered the conquistadors to be gods, but another interpretation is "mysterious" or "inexplicable".
Whereas in most Nahuatl translations of the Bible and Christian texts, "God" is translated with the Spanish word Dios, in modern translations by the Catholic Church in the 21st century, the word Teotzin, which is a combination of teotl and the reverential suffix -tzin, is used officially for "God".