Ahuízotl (creature)

The ahuízotl (Nahuatl, āhuitzotl) is a legendary creature from Mexica mythology.

The description of the animal was made by the informants of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún and is as follows:

“is size like a parrot, has very lezne and small hair, has the small and pointed orejitas, has a black and very smooth body, has the long tail and at the end of the tail one as a person’s hand; has feet and hands, and hands and feet as a monkey; inhabits this animal in the deep springs of the waters. ”

It also had a very long tail topped with one hand with which it caught anyone who came near the ponds and streams where it lived and drowned them.

Since it is an uncommon name, chroniclers paid little attention to translating it, the most general is to find its meaning as "otter" or "spaniel". The historian Enrique Vela analyzes it from an etymological point of view and proposes the translation as "el espinoso del agua"; which would be its original meaning but in daily use it must have referred exclusively to name the animal. It has been proposed that it could be an animal now extinct from Lake Texcoco, related to otters, and due to its rarity, mythical in both habits and appearance.

The attack of the ahuízotl, who was at the service of the rain divinities, supposed that the gods had chosen the victim and their souls were transported to paradise. The bodies of the unfortunate, who could only be touched by priests due to the interest of the gods for their souls, always appeared a few days after drowning and all of them, the beast had gouged out their eyes, nails and teeth in the process. inside his underwater cave. Generally, the ahuízotl attracted humans, especially fishermen, crying like a baby from the shores and sometimes causing eddies that threw fish and frogs out of the water.

The name of the revolutionary anti-Porfirio newspaper El hijo del Ahuizote is an allusion to the ahuízotl.

In the second season of the Mexican mythological series "Diablero", the ahuízotl is a powerful level 3 demon that murders its victims to feed another mythological being and turn it into an evil being that will close the last door to angels.

In the Slugterra series a group of mysterious humanoid beings called the "Shadow Clan" They have an appearance similar to the ahuizotl, with some details that make them characteristic of the world in which they inhabit.

He was depicted in the television series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as the villain of an adventure book.