Guilhem Olivier's Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God is a masterful study of Tezcatlipoca, one of the greatest but least understood deities in the Mesoamerican pantheon.

An enigmatic and melodramatic figure, the Lord of the Smoking Mirror was both drunken seducer and mutilated transgressor and although he severely punished those who violated pre-Columbian moral codes, he also received mortal confessions. A patron deity to kings and warriors as well as a protector of slaves, Tezcatlipoca often clashed in epic confrontations with his "enemy brother" Quetzalcoatl, the famed Feathered Serpent. Yet these powers of Mesoamerican mythology collaborated to create the world, and their common attributes hint at a dual character.

In a sophisticated, systematic tour through the sources and problems related to Tezcatlipoca's protean powers and shifting meanings, Olivier guides readers through the symbolic names of this great god, from his representation on skins and stones to his relationship to ritual knives and other deities.

Drawing upon iconographic material, chronicles written in Spanish and in Nahuatl, and the rich contributions of ethnography, Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God - like the mirror of Tezcatlipoca in which the fates of mortals were reflected - reveals an important but obscured portion of the cosmology of pre-Columbian Mexico.

Tezcatlipoca: Trickster and Supreme Deity brings archaeological evidence into the body of scholarship on “the lord of the smoking mirror,” one of the most important Aztec deities. While iconographic and textual resources from sixteenth-century chroniclers and codices have contributed greatly to the understanding of Aztec religious beliefs and practices, contributors to this volume demonstrate the diverse ways material evidence expands on these traditional sources.

The interlocking complexities of Tezcatlipoca’s nature, multiple roles, and metaphorical attributes illustrate the extent to which his influence penetrated Aztec belief and social action across all levels of late Postclassic central Mexican culture. Tezcatlipoca examines the results of archaeological investigations—objects like obsidian mirrors, gold, bells, public stone monuments, and even a mosaic skull—and reveals new insights into the supreme deity of the Aztec pantheon and his role in Aztec culture.