Huitzilopochtli

As anyone with a hummingbird feeder will know, these diminutive birds are some of the most aggressive creatures out there. One woman's description of her yard as a "Lilliputian battle field" had me laughing out loud.

The Aztecs, who knew a thing or two about violence, gave the hummingbird's form to their god of war. Huitzilopochtli, roughly translated as "blue hummingbird on the left", was the Aztec god of of the sun and war, and patron deity of the capital city Tenochtitlán. When Aztec warriors died in battle, they were believed to be reincarnated as hummingbirds. So here's my version of Huitzilopochtli, in honor of all the little hummers out there fiercely defending their flowers.

Accompanying Huitzilopochtli is the fire-serpent Xiuhcóatl, along with an arrow and an Aztec spear.