Centzonhuītznāhua

In Aztec origin narratives surrounding the birth of Huītzilōpōchtli, the Centzonhuītznāhua are the numerous sons of Cōātlīcue who, along with their sister Coyolxāuhqui, learn of their mother's pregnancy by a ball of feathers and conspire to kill her. When they approach Cōātlīcue, Huītzilōpōchtli springs from the womb fully formed and armed, kills the brothers and beheads Coyolxāuhqui; the fleeing brothers are thereafter scattered across the sky as the southern stars.

Sources do not provide standardized iconography for individual members; they are described collectively as 'four hundred' brothers — a Nahuatl idiom indicating a very large or innumerable multitude — and are associated conceptually and etiologically with the southern stars. No detailed costumes, attributes, or anthropomorphic descriptions are attested in the cited accounts.

Their attested role is primarily mythic and etiological: they are gods of the southern stars and act collectively as conspirators against their mother in the Huītzilōpōchtli birth-myth. Beyond being identified as numerous southern stellar deities and as opponents who are slain and scattered by Huītzilōpōchtli, the provided sources do not ascribe additional, individualized powers, ongoing interactions with humans, or ritual functions to them.