Huitznahuatl (MH632r)

John Bierhorst (A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos, 1985, 143) says that Huitznahuatl was a "name or epithet of a god to whom slaves were sacrificed in Mexico." Other sources report that one of the ethnic groups that migrated from the Seven Caves came from a place called Huitznahuac, and there was a temple with this association in Mexico Tenochtitlan. Finally, Huitznahuatl was a high title, and it had an association with the South. The name was not inaccessible for tribute-paying men of humble means, such as found in the census of modern-day Morelos and in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco (modern-day Puebla). See the Online Nahuatl Dictionary for more information about Huitznahuac and Huitznahuatl.

The huitztli (thorn) was used in self-sacrificial blood letting, and so it played an important religious role in Nahua culture. Bloodletting also has an association with human sacrificial offerings, as M. Graulich writes in an article in Estudios de Cultural Náhuatl 36 (2005), "Autosacrifice in Ancient Mexico."