Did you know that the dog named Dante in the Pixar movie Coco relates to an Aztec god of death and the Underworld? And that Dante even looks like this deity?
Dante is one of my favorite animal sidekicks in any Disney movie. He's loyal and sweet, especially to the main character, Miguel, who Dante helps in the Land of the Dead. Disney animators knew what they were doing when they made Dante a little scruffy-looking but also exceptionally adorable and happy. I love his bent ear and his long tongue that perpetually hangs out of his mouth.
Fun fact: Coco is one of my favorite movies. I cry like a baby every time.
Dante's appearance seems to be based on the Mexican dogs known as Xoloitzcuintli, the Aztec deity Xolotl, and alebrijes (at least in part of the movie). During the creation of Coco, it's clear that animators found inspiration in a lot of Mesoamerican art and architecture, not just the Aztecs. I've talked in other places about how they looked at the ancient city of Teotihuacan, the ancient Maya, and more. Let's look at how Dante relates to the Aztecs!
Xolotl, an Aztec god of the Underworld
First off, I want to note that the people we now call the Aztecs didn't actually call themselves that. Instead, they referred to themselves as the Mexica. While I prefer to use the name Mexica, I understand that most people only know them as the Aztecs—so I will use that for now.
The Aztecs established a powerful empire in Central Mexico from the 14th to 16th centuries. They conquered many other groups and places throughout Mesoamerica (a region that includes Mexico and parts of Central America). As part of this process of conquest, the Aztecs would also absorb different deities into their religious pantheon—by the 16th century; the Aztecs had a ton of deities that they revered. One of these deities was the god Xolotl, an Aztec deity of the Underworld and a spirit guide for the dead. In a monumental stone sculpture made by the Aztecs c. 1500, you can see Xolotl's head. You will likely immediately notice that it looks canine-like! Xolotl has an open mouth with sharp teeth, a tongue that hangs out, large staring eyes, and slightly wrinkled skin. While the medium or form might be different, Dante likewise has the large eyes, wrinkled skin, and lolling tongue.
Xolotl was a dog-headed god (though sometimes just shown as a dog), so it makes sense to see the head this way. While he was a guide to the dead in the Underworld, this wasn't necessarily read as something negative or solely "bad."
Xolotl's role was understood to be able to transform the dead into something living. Death begets life. Here's another way to think of that idea. Imagine a dog, much like Dante in Coco, who scrounges through trash to find food (not all of it fresh, much of it rotting). Dogs will also eat excrement, and if they are more feral might eat dead things (animal or human). But from ingesting this decaying or dead stuff—gross things—dogs can likewise bring forth life. They enjoy making puppies if you catch my drift.
Besides his connection with the underworld and the dead, Xolotl is associated with twins—likely because he has a twin! In some accounts, he is noted as the twin of Quetzalcoatl. For this reason, he is a patron of double things. This also encapsulates his relationship to the sun's setting (or dying) every day; Quetzalcoatl related to the sun's rebirth each day. The cycle of the sun, in its rising and setting, is complementary, as are life and death. Just like dogs that eat gross (sometimes dead) things but still bring about new life.
Xolotl is an interesting deity, and this is just scratching the surface! Let's look at the Dante-Xolotl connection in more detail.
Xolotl in the Codex Borgia
One of my favorite images of Xolotl is from the Codex Borgia, a Mesoamerican screenfold manuscript made in Mexico circa 1450–1500 by the Nahua (the ethnic group that the Aztec belonged too). It includes information about astronomy and divination, among other things. There are many different deities shown through the codex, which is beautifully painted. It doesn't include alphabetic text; the writing is all done with images, or pictographs. Each form is picked out with crisp black contour lines and then colored in hues of red, yellow, black, and orange.
In a detail in one section, you can can see Xolotl, with hisdog head and a large tongue that hangs from his mouth. He wears an elaborate headdress and a cut conch shell on his chest (this is actually associated with Quetzalcoatl at the wind god, so it's making that twin relationship clear). The artist includes interesting swirls and lines on Xolotl's dark body, perhaps to reference the wrinkled texture of skin, like we saw in the Aztec monumental stone head.
Once again, it bears repeating that it seems as though Disney animators familiarized themselves with Xolotl imagery—Dante has the same big tongue that hangs out of his mouth constantly throughout Coco! And just like Xolotl, he’s also a spirit guide for the main character, Miguel, while he journeys through the Land of the Dead in the movie.
The Xoloitzcuintli dog
Xolotl is also the deity related to the Mexican hairless dog called Xoloitzcuintli—the type of dog that Dante is supposed to be in the movie. Their name is often abbreviated to just Xolo dogs. These dogs are native to Mexico and have been around for a long time! They are becoming more popular as a dog breed today. They often have big ears, a sprinkling of coarse hair on their heads, and what looks like wrinkled skin—because they have no hair!
I have to imagine that the creators of the Codex Borgia and Aztec sculptures showing Xolo must have drawn inspiration for the Xolo dogs, which they favored, because in reality, the lolling tongue is common in Xolo dogs. They apparently loose their premolars, which means that their tongue falls out a lot!
So we've come full circle. Disney animators creating the figure of Dante in Coco clearly looked to existing Xolo dogs, and I'd wager, Mesoamerican art that likewise looked to Xolo dogs. Disney definitely drew inspiration from the Aztec deity Xolotl, so why not the very art that portrayed him too?
Fun literary fact: Dante, as in Dante Alighieri, famous Italian poet/author of the Divine Comedy, gives his name to the Coco character because of Dante’s own journey through Purgatory and Hell. I will post something in more detail about this at a later point.
Another fun fact: Axolotls are also related to Xolotl. Feel free to ask me how. :)
And if you are wondering why I haven't talked about Dante as an alebrije, please know I will! Just not in this post—the discussion of alebrijes warrants its own deep dive.
If you've enjoyed learning about Dante, Coco, and Aztec and Central Mexican art, then you will definitely enjoy my other posts and my newsletter that dives into more Disney art history!
Learn more
Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2007.
Maffie, James. Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion. University Press of Colorado, 2015.
Check out the entire Codex Borgia through the Digital Vatican Library.
Learn more about Aztec stone sculpture on The Heilbrunn Timeline.
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