In fact, the mask's raised turquoise may depict the wart-faced god Nanahuatzin, who, according to Aztec mythology, sacrificed himself to the fire and emerged to become the sun.

Here, in this store of unborn souls, they waited until the gods decided ... Eclipses, the Aztec believed, threatened pregnancy. The Tzitzimitl—astral deities visible when the sun was in eclipse ...

The story begins with the Aztec God of death and lightning, the Xolotl. As legends have it, he was a monstrous dog that guarded the sun god and ushered souls to the underworld every night.