Xochitónal (from Nahuatl, "flower of soul"), in Mexican mythology was a gigantic iguana that was submerged in the black waters of the Apanuiayo, one of the places where the dead had to pass to reach Mictlán.
Other sources claim that it was a giant lizard that guarded the entrance to a ford in the kingdom of the dead, and is represented with the figure of an alligator charged primarily to monitor the passage of the dead through the river "Apanhuiayo" , an immense lake of black water that represented the seventh obstacle that the soul had to overcome in its journey to its definitive rest. Among the Nahua cultures, he points out that the soul ("tonalli") of those who died of natural death should elude or defeat him in order to arrive at the Chiconahuapan shores where he would meet the lord of the dead Mictlantecuhtli and in his presence he would definitely die. < / p>
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