Nezahualcoyotl

fbharjo commented on the word Nezahualcoyotl

Nezahualcoyotl (Classical Nahuatl: Nezahualcoyōtl, pronounced nesawaɬˈkojoːtɬ, meaning "Coyote in fast" or "Coyote who Fasts")1(April 28, 1402 – June 4, 1472) was a philosopher, warrior, architect, poet and ruler (tlatoani) of the city-state of Texcoco in pre-Columbian Mexico. Unlike other high-profile Mexican figures from the century preceding the Spanish Conquest, Nezahualcoyotl was not an Aztec; his people were the Acolhua, another Nahuan people settled in the eastern part of the Valley of Mexico, settling on the eastern side of Lake Texcoco.

He is best remembered for his beautiful poetry, but according to a pictorial History read aloud to Fray Diego Durán, Spanish-born native Nahuatl-speaker, and to more embellished accounts by his descendants and biographers, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl and Juan Bautista de Pomar, he had an experience of an "Unknown, Unknowable Lord of Everywhere" to whom he built an entirely empty temple in which no blood sacrifices of any kind were allowed—not even animal. However, like the fabled King Solomon, he allowed even human sacrifice to continue in his other temples. - Wikipedia

October 2, 2010