DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER
INTRODUCTORY
So numerous were the manifestations and variants of the Earth-goddess
conceived by the Nahua or adopted into their pantheon, that this has
been the cause of considerable misconception on the part of students of
Mexican religion, who have confounded them in a manner which in the
circumstances is scarcely surprising. An attempt will be made here to
provide the reader with a list of the most important of these deities,
briefly and barely outlining their various origins and attributes, in
order that he may be the better able to comprehend what follows when we
come to discuss them more fully.
Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpents)—the Mexican name of the Earth-goddess and
that of the seventh day of the seventh week of the tonalamatl. She was
probably of Toltec origin. The third interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus
A identifies her with Xochiquetzal, and, perhaps more correctly, with
Xumoco and Tonacacigua or Tonacaciuatl. She had two temples dedicated
to her, the chicome iteopan and the cinteopan, and seems to have become
a variant of Tonacaciuatl on the adoption of an agricultural basis of
existence.
Tlazolteotl, Tlaelquani, Teteo innan or Toci—an earth-goddess whose
worship had its origin among the tribes of the Atlantic seaboard, where
maize grew abundantly. She possessed warlike propensities, as became a
goddess to whom human sacrifice was much in vogue, and the myth of her
impregnation by Uitzilopochtli was enacted at the ochpaniztli festival
in August, typifying, perhaps, the impregnation of the “earth-mother”
by the “sky-father.” As Ixcuine she represented a plurality of
goddesses. Seler [175] believes that Chicomecoatl represents the young
maize ear, and Tlazolteotl, the ripe ear of the plant.
Cihuacoatl (Serpent Woman)—an earth-goddess of Xochimilco and
Colhuacan.
Coatlicue or Coatlantonan (Serpent Skirt)—a Mexican earth-goddess,
mother of Uitzilopochtli.
Xochiquetzal—originally a mountain goddess of the Tlalhuica. An
earth-and-maize goddess as well as a deity of flowers and vegetation.
Xilonen—originally a maize-goddess of the Huichol tribes. She
represented the young maize-plant.
Cinteotl (Maize-god)—son of Tlazolteotl, originally a god of the
peoples of the Atlantic seaboard. He is occasionally alluded to as a
female deity, but is always male in the MSS. of the Borgia group,
executed by a people of Nahua speech dwelling in the south. He is the
equivalent of Xochipilli and had a separate temple, the cinteopan.
Xipe—an earth-god of the Teotitlan district, a god of spring
vegetation. His temples were called yopico. His great festival was the
Tlacaxipeuliztli, or “flaying of men.”
Only three of these deities, Tlazolteotl, Xipe, and Xochiquetzal,
appear as rulers of one or other of the twenty day-signs of the
tonalamatl. But Cinteotl figures in the ochpaniztli feast and appears
as one of the “Lords of the Night.”
These criteria are perhaps sufficient to identify these figures as
separate divinities. We find in Sahagun that Chicomecoatl, Cinteotl,
and Xipe had separate temples of their own. In several of the rituals
of the great festivals, however, the cults of Tlazolteotl,
Chicomecoatl, and Cinteotl appear to have been very closely interwoven,
and this leads me to suspect that the worship of the old Toltec goddess
Chicomecoatl was in process of fusion with that of the “immigrant”
Tlazolteotl at the period of the Conquest. Xilonen, too, according to
Sahagun, had a separate festival in her honour, the uei tecuilhuitl.
From all this and from considerations still to be advanced we may,
perhaps, be justified in assuming:
(1) That at the period of the Conquest the cults of Tlazolteotl,
Chicomecoatl, and Cinteotl were very naturally in process of becoming
amalgamated, the worship of the two goddesses, Mexican and alien,
presenting many features in common.
(2) That Xochiquetzal, originally the goddess of the Tlalhuica, was
regarded more properly as the goddess of flowers and of the spring
florescence, a hypothesis which is upheld by her myths. Her equation
with Tonacaciuatl appears to have been a later concept, due to the
connection of both with the earth.
(3) That the Huichol goddess Xilonen came to symbolize for the Nahua
the maize plant in its early stages of growth, and in that respect
resembles Cinteotl.
(4) That the cult of the southern god Xipe, the grain-deity of a
related people, had made great headway among the Nahua of
Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
(5) It follows from these conclusions that only one of these deities of
growth—Coatlicue—was of Nahua origin, all the others being gods of the
aboriginal or settled peoples. The Chichimec Nahua, a hunting people,
possessing no official grain-goddess of their own, would naturally come
to worship these on their adoption of an agricultural mode of life. As
most of these forms hailed from districts of considerable cultural
antiquity, I believe their worship to have been of long duration in the
land, not much less ancient, indeed, than the cult of Tlaloc.
It is not claimed for these conclusions that they are more than
approximate. The data relative to these deities is much too complex to
permit of any more precise or dogmatic treatment, in fact at one time
or another there was identification between them all; but with the
above attempt at simplification in view we shall now endeavour to
present the reader with a detailed account of each of these and other
less important divinities who were regarded as in any way connected
with the personification of the earth or the growth of the crops, their
festivals and ritual.
The earth-deities seem to have been prophetic and divinatory and to
have been connected with medicine, like similar European and Asiatic
goddesses. Some of them, like Itzpapalotl, share the butterfly symbol
with the gods of fire, with whom they are frequently connected. They
are also closely associated with the deer, a fertility animal, and the
eagle, the sun-bird, and their victims were, like those of the sun and
war deities, decked with eagle-down.
TLAZOLTEOTL = “GODDESS OF DIRT”
Territory: Huaxtec, Mixtec, Olmec.
Minor Names:
Tlaelquani = “Filth-eater.”
Chicunaui acatl = “Nine Reed.”
Teteo Innan = “Mother of the Gods.”
Chiquacen acatl = “Six Reed.”
Toci = “Our Grandmother.”
Naui tecpatl = “Four Flint Knife.”
Cocauic Xochitla = “Yellow Bloom.”
Tlalli iyallo = “Heart of the Earth.”
Iztac Xochitla = “White Bloom.”
Ixcuine = “Four Faces.”
Tonana Teumechaue = “Our mother, the goddess of the thigh-skin
face-painting.”
Calendar Places: Ruler of the fourteenth day, ocelotl, of the
thirteenth week, ce olin. Seventh of the nine lords of the night.
Compass Direction: West.
Festivals: Ochpaniztli (“Feast of Brooms”) in the eleventh month.
Symbols: A man eating excrement (“Dirt-eater”); a broom.
Relationships: Mother of Centeotl; one of the Tzitzimimê.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 74: Here Tlazolteotl is depicted as naked, and
accompanied by a snake. A patch of rubber appears near the mouth, and
her head is bound by a fillet of unspun cotton. Behind the neck a
feather ornament is seen, made of the blue plumage of the quail, and
she also wears the golden nasal Huaxtec ornament usually seen in
connection with the octli-gods. In the Codex Vaticanus B her naked body
is painted white, with yellow longitudinal stripes, and she has the
bifurcated nose-ornament of Xipe. Significantly, perhaps, the shape of
her eye recalls that of the god of flaying, whose eye is usually a mere
slit in the flayed human skin which he wears, and through the mask of
which he is supposed to be looking. She wears the cotton fillet and
ear-plug typical of her.
Sahagun MS.—In this place she has a disk of liquid rubber on the face,
with which substance her mouth is also painted, an elaborate cotton
headdress, crowned with feathers, a tunic of sac shape with a fringe
divided into compartments, a skirt with bands joined by diagonal lines,
and she holds in her right hand the broom symbolic of her feast, and in
her left a shield decorated with four concentric circles.
General.—In the tonalamatl of the Aubin-Goupil collection, wherever she
is depicted as seventh of the nine lords of the night, her face is
white, its upper portion being surrounded by a yellow band. In the
Codex Borbonicus she is occasionally painted all yellow or all white,
and this yellow colour symbolizes that of the ripe maize ear. In the
song about her given by Sahagun, we observe that she is alluded to as
“the yellow blossom” and the “white blossom,” otherwise the yellow or
white maize—the maize at different stages of its growth.
Another of her distinguishing characteristics, as has been remarked, is
the black colouring in the region of the mouth, which frequently
extends to and includes the tip of the nose and chin and, as Sahagun
states, this was effected with liquid rubber, as in the case of the
Fire-god. The small patch or circle on her cheek is also commented upon
by Sahagun, who says, “a hole has she placed on her cheek”—the “hole”
being probably a disk of rubber with a perforated centre. As an
alternative to this we find in Codex Borgia two broad horizontal lines
and in Codex Borbonicus several short, vertical black lines below the
eye, and it would seem that the concentric circle on the shield of the
goddess in the Sahagun MS. has the same meaning—that is, it is probably
a symbol of sex. [176] In some representations her skirt is covered
with crescent-shaped objects perhaps typical of her symbol—excrement.
When Tlazolteotl appears as ruler of the thirteenth week she often
lacks the ripe-maize colour with which she is represented elsewhere.
Thus in Telleriano-Remensis she is painted about the mouth with liquid
rubber, and in Borbonicus her face-paint is in two colours. A black
stroke is seen descending from brow to nose, but she has the yellow
skin-colour. In both cases she is, like Xipe, clothed in the skin of a
victim. In Telleriano-Remensis and the Aubin tonalamatl her arms and
legs are powdered with white chalk and small feathers are affixed to
them, probably with ulli gum. In Telleriano-Remensis these cover part
of her costume as well. In this codex, too, her Huaxtec nose-ornament
is replaced by one having a stepped motif, or a butterfly formed of the
spotted feathers of the quail.
The cotton fillet of the goddess is worthy of further remark. It is
made from the unspun produce of the plant, covers the top of the head
and reaches the shoulders on either side of the face. Spindles are
stuck into the mass, which is marked upon its surface with acute-angled
figures or groups of parallel lines on a white ground, which may be
regarded as hieroglyphic of raw cotton.
In certain of the MSS., for example in the Aubin tonalamatl and in
Telleriano-Remensis, Tlazolteotl wears a feather coronal, which in
other codices takes the shape of a fan or nape-ring like that
frequently worn by Quetzalcoatl. Occasionally, too, it rises from a
rubber ball which rests upon the head. In Codex Borgia (sheet 68) the
feathers are dark in colour, but are brightened by the red plumes which
spring from them in turn. Elsewhere we find white, brown, or yellow
feathers, the latter prepared artificially from palm-leaves, which,
like the fan-shaped ornament itself, are Huaxtec in character. In the
picture in Borbonicus of Tlazolteotl as ruler of the week ce olin (one
reed) we see the conical Huaxtec hat, as worn by Quetzalcoatl, peeping
above her cotton headdress, and the palm-leaf plume rising from a
feather fan, which springs from a ball of rubber. In
Telleriano-Remensis Tlazolteotl is seen wearing a string of
snail-shells depending from the waist. This is known as citallicue, or
“star-skirt,” another Huaxtec article of dress.
In none of the representations alluded to was Tlazolteotl pictured with
the broom characteristic of her and of her feast-day, ochpanitztli
(“when they sweep the ways”). This was made from hard, stiff, pointed
grass, which was cut with sickles in the mountain-forests of
Popocatepetl. [177] It was bound with a coloured leather strap, and the
paper which held it together was flecked with the V-shaped cotton
symbol.
MYTHS
Tlazolteotl is described in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis as “the woman
who sinned before the deluge, who was the cause of all evil, of all
deceit”; but this would appear to be an error for Ixnextli or
Xochiquetzal (q.v.). The Anales de Quauhtitlan says of her: “In the
same year (8 Rabbit) came the so-called Ixcuiname female demons [to
Tollan] and, as they say from the reports of the old people, they came
from Huaxteca. And in the place Cuextecatl ichocayan (“Where the
Huaxtecs weep”) they summoned these captives whom they had taken in
Huaxteca and explained to them what was about to be done, saying—‘We go
now to Tollan. We wish to couple the earth with you, we desire to hold
a feast with you, for till now no battle offerings have been made with
men. We wish to make a beginning of it and shoot you to death with
arrows.’”
SACRIFICE BY SHOOTING WITH ARROWS
This indicates that the goddess, one of the Ixcuiname, was regarded as
the inventress of that especial mode of sacrifice by which the victim
was tied to a framework and shot to death with arrows. We have no
classical statement that such a proceeding took place at her festival,
however, but it is known that it formed part of the ritual at the
festival of Xipe (q.v.). The expression, “We wish to couple the earth
with you,” when taken along with the straddling attitude of the victim
on his frame, has given rise to the assumption [178] that such a
sacrifice was intended to symbolize a sexual connection between the
victim and the earth or earth-mother. It appears to me as more probable
that its intention was to draw down rain by sympathetic magic, the
dropping blood from the arrow wounds symbolizing the rain, and the tear
which the victim sheds in the representation of this sacrifice in the
Codex Nuttall and Codex Telleriano-Remensis, combined with the fact
that such sacrifices are supposed to have been made in years of
drought, strengthens my belief in the soundness of this theory.
Ixcuine means “four-faced,” and may apply to the circumstance that
ancient idols of Tlazolteotl were, like those of Janus, provided with
more than one face, so that they might look upon every direction whence
the rain might come. Later, however, the Ixcuiname were regarded as a
fourfold manifestation of Tlazolteotl and as personifying four sisters
of different age, Tiacapan, Teicu, Tlaco and Xocoyotzin, who
“represented the carnal passions.” [179]
HYMN
A song in the Sahagun MS. relating to Tlazolteotl is as follows:
“The yellow blossom has flowered. She, our mother, with the
thigh-skin of the goddess painted upon her face, came out
of Tamoanchan. The white blossom has burst open, she our
mother,” etc. [180]
This of course symbolizes the yellow and white maize. The thigh-skin of
the goddess “is the mask cut from the thigh of the sacrificed girl and
worn by the priest” (see “Festivals,” infra). The statement that
Tlazolteotl came out of Tamoanchan is important, for another song in
the same series tells us that in that paradise was born her son
Cinteotl, the Maize-god (q.v.).
FESTIVALS
Ochpaniztli.—This, the great festival of Tlazolteotl, was held in the
opening of the eleventh Aztec month, commencing, says Sahagun, [181]
about September 14th. Fifteen days before the festival began, those who
were to celebrate it danced the sacred dances, which they continued for
eight days. In complete silence they ranged themselves in four lines,
and danced with their hands full of flowers, keeping time most
precisely. At the end of eight days those women who practised medicine,
the mid wives, leech-women, and steam-bath keepers probably, divided
themselves into two companies and presented themselves before a female
victim who represented the goddess and who was destined for sacrifice.
Their object was, says Sahagun, to amuse her and to keep her from
pondering upon her fate. The victim herself, accompanied by three old
women called her “mothers,” headed one of these parties, who pelted
each other with the red leaves of the cactus flower. In the whole
performance we can see some such concept as survives in a manner in the
modern “battle of flowers,” which in certain towns in Southern France
ushers in the season of Lent. The victim was then led back to the place
of detention, and the ceremony was repeated for several days in
succession. Then the “mothers” who guarded her led her through the
public market-place for the last time, on which occasion she sowed
maize on every side, and on that day she was taken to a place near the
teocalli [182] where she was to be sacrificed. As it was of importance
that she should not mourn, she was informed that she was to become the
bride of the king, and for this imaginary honour she was adorned with
the full insignia of the goddess Tlazolteotl.
When midnight had arrived, in a dead and unbroken silence, she was led
to the summit of the lofty teocalli, where she was placed on the
shoulders of a man, as was the custom with brides about to be borne to
the houses of their lords, and ere she could be well aware what was
about to happen, she was decapitated and immediately flayed. First of
all pieces of skin were removed from the broad portion of the thigh and
carried to the temple of Cinteotl, the son of Tlazolteotl. The skin of
the upper part of the body formed a jacket, which a priest of
Tlazolteotl, chosen for his strength and vigour, drew over his own
body. Accompanied by two men vowed to his assistance, as well as by
other priests, dressed to represent the goddess’s Huaxtec servants, all
of whom carried blood-sprinkled brooms which they brandished in a
combative manner, he pursued a number of nobles and warriors, who
struck their shields and made a threatening display. The priest who
personified the goddess rushed upon these with simulated fury, but they
fled before him, refusing him battle. This part of the proceedings
symbolized the warlike nature of the goddess, and the military
significance of her cult. As has been explained, the people of Mexico
believed that only by the continued offering up of human sacrifice and
blood could an adequate rainfall, and therefore abundant harvests, be
procured, and this naturally presumed the upkeep of a considerable
standing army and many military guilds or brotherhoods dedicated to the
task of securing a large supply of sacrificial victims. The warlike
character of the Earth-goddess was assumed as a matter of course.
This chase continued until the priest who personated Tlazolteotl came
to the teocalli of Uitzilopochtli, the War-god. Here he lay down and
stretched himself out in the female posture for sexual intercourse.
Says the Aztec text of Sahagun: “Then she broadens herself [that is the
priest personating the goddess], expands, stretches arms and legs out
at the feet of Uitzilopochtli, her face turned towards him.” This
ceremony undoubtedly had reference to a supposed impregnation of the
goddess by the god Uitzilopochtli, and that the myth relating to it was
enacted is shown by the symbolic presence of her son, Cinteotl, or a
priest dressed to represent that god, who had placed over his face a
mask made from the skin of the thighs of the flayed woman which had
been sent to his temple, and who was now regarded as the son conceived.
[183]
In addition to the skin-mask, the Cinteotl priest wore a hat or cap,
also made of the skin of the sacrificed victim, which had a vandyked
edging of the crown, or a crest like the comb of a cock, symbolic of
the stone knife of sacrifice.
Together, the priests of Tlazolteotl and Cinteotl now proceeded to the
temple of the former, where they awaited the morning. At dawn the chief
men of the community, who had been waiting near the teocalli, ran up
the steps of the temple bearing offerings. The priest of the goddess
was then decorated with her insignia in addition to the dreadful trophy
he wore. His head and feet were covered with the white down from the
eagle’s breast, the particular ornament of the warrior who had captured
a victim in battle. His face was painted red, the colour of the ripe
maize, he was clothed in a short tunic which had woven upon it the
semblance of an eagle, and he was equipped with other garments for the
lower part of the body. Still richer and more elaborate vestments were
then placed on him by the priests, after which he went to select the
captives who must die. He chose four of these, and placing them upon
the stone of sacrifice, dispatched them by taking out their hearts,
handing over the others to the priests to deal with similarly. This
done, he accompanied the Cinteotl priest to his temple, the Huaxtec
servants marching before them, wearing what would seem to be huge
artificial phalluses and tassels of untwisted cotton, to symbolize the
virile strength and richness of the earth. [184] They were also
accompanied by the medical women.
Coming to the temple of Cinteotl, the priest of Tlazolteotl placed one
foot upon the drum there, and awaited the priest of Cinteotl, who later
set out alone in a hasty manner, and accompanied by a large body of
warriors, to a point on the frontiers of Mexico where a small hut
stood, and at this place he left the mask and cap which he had worn,
made from the thighs of the sacrificed woman. Not infrequently the
party were attacked or ambushed and fighting ensued. I can form no
opinion regarding the significance of this procedure. Was the skin left
on the frontier as a gage of war, as would appear to be its most
obvious interpretation, or did it possess a deeper and more symbolical
meaning? If it did, I am at a loss to supply the elucidation. I feel
that this is one of those acts so often encountered in primitive
religion, when the temptation is to look for a profound meaning where,
perhaps, none exists.
The priest of Tlazolteotl, on the departure of his colleague, proceeded
to the temple called Atempan, or “Place of Death,” a favourite
muster-place for children and leprous persons about to be sacrificed,
which was situated in the precincts of the great temple of Mexico. Here
the king took his seat on a throne, his footstool being a nest made of
eagles’ skin and feathers, whilst an ocelot-skin was cast over the back
of the seat, these articles symbolizing the “knighthoods” of the eagle
and ocelot respectively. A military review followed, and the monarch
distributed raiment, arms, and insignia to the deserving, who, thus
distinguished, were expected to so comport themselves in war that they
might eventually die the warrior’s death, the only fitting end for a
Mexican brave. The recipients then repaired to the temple of
Tlazolteotl, where dancing was engaged in. The scene was picturesque
and even magnificent, for all the dancers held flowers in each hand and
wore the dazzling insignia of their various ranks and orders.
This spectacle continued for two days, and on the evening of the second
day the priests of the goddess Chicomecoatl (q.v.), clothed in the
skins of captives slain at the festival of that goddess, ascended a
little teocalli known as the “Table of Uitzilopochtli,” and threw
broadcast maize and calabash seeds upon the heads of the multitude
below, who scrambled for the grain. The young women in the service of
Chicomecoatl now advanced, each bearing upon her shoulder seven ears of
maize, rolled in a rich mantle, and wrapped in white paper, after being
sprinkled with ulli gum. The high-priest of the goddess led the chant,
after which he descended from the teocalli and placed in a little
cavity between the temple stairs and the temple itself a large basket
filled with powdered chalk and feather-down. The warriors at once
rushed upon it and scrambled for the contents, which were, of course,
symbolical of the goddess’s “make-up.” They were chased by the priests,
whom they pelted with the chalk and feathers, even the king taking part
in the sport. The priest then betook himself to the temple of the
goddess, called Toctitlan (“The Place of our Grandmother”), where he
saw the skin of the sacrificed woman properly disposed.
Thus ended the ceremonies of the ochpaniztli, one of the most
picturesque and involved, yet gruesome, of the festivals of ancient
Mexico.
RITUAL
Tlazolteotl, as we shall find when we attempt our elucidation of her
characteristics, was regarded as the goddess of sexual indulgence, a
not inappropriate rôle for the wild, wanton, and riotous goddess of
earth, so prodigal in her bringing forth and (naturally in the eyes of
a primitive people) so bountiful in her favours, for to the barbarian
mind productiveness is the outcome of lustfulness. By an easy
transition, then, she became the goddess of sexual immorality, the
patron of prostitutes, and the archetype of female wantonness. But,
rather strangely, although she presided over salacious vice, she alone
could pardon it, and once in a lifetime the Mexican adulterer or
libertine might approach her to obtain by a full confession remission
of his sins. This he generally did late in life, for absolution could
not be obtained on a subsequent occasion. The ritual associated with
his cleansing was a prolonged and involved one, and is described by
Sahagun in the twelfth chapter of his first book.
There is no reason to believe that the account of the ritual as
furnished by Sahagun is otherwise than genuine, and he remarks upon the
facility with which the native Mexicans embraced the Catholic
confession as a proof that the rite was not unknown to them.
TEMPLE
We know from the descriptions of the ochpaniztli festivals in the
Sahagun Aztec MS., and the illustrations accompanying them, that the
temple of Tlazolteotl, the Toctitlan, was a scaffolding of poles on
which was set a representation of the goddess.
PRIESTHOOD
That Tlazolteotl possessed a priesthood of her own is obvious from the
repeated mention of the adolescent youths known as Cuecuesteca (“Her
Huaxtecs”), who figured in the festival of ochpaniztli. But that these
were only priests ad hoc, or employed temporarily for that celebration,
is likely, as Sahagun states (Appendix to bk. ii) that the Atempan
teohuatzin, or the Chief of Rites connected with the Atempan, had the
task of assembling them, as well as charge of the insignia used at the
festival. Tlazolteotl’s priests, according to Sahagun (bk. i, c. xii),
were “the augurs who possessed the books with the prognostications and
the destinies of the new-born and the spells and the omens and the
traditions of the ancients, as they were handed down and came unto
them.”
NATURE AND STATUS
Tlazolteotl has been completely identified with the Teteo innan or Toci
of Sahagun and other writers, but though she ranked as the Earth-mother
of Mexico par excellence, there is no room for doubt that her worship
was originally alien, and assuredly of Huaxtec origin. The Huaxtecs
were a people of Maya origin or affinities, isolated from the main body
of that race, dwelling on the east coast of Mexico, and retaining many
of their peculiar customs; and it is noteworthy that a Huaxtecan
goddess should be alluded to in Mexican tradition as coming to Tollan,
the city of the Toltecs, the people whom so many writers have tried to
identify with the Maya. As has been observed, she was accompanied at
the ochpaniztli festival by a band of youths dressed to represent
Huaxtecs, who in the Codex Borbonicus picture of the festival are shown
as wearing the cone-shaped Huaxtec cap. She herself wears the Huaxtec
nose-ornament in common with the octli-gods. She is repeatedly stated
to have had her “home” in Cuextlan, the Huaxtec country, and there are
good grounds for supposing that its inhabitants, of whose religion we
know little, had brought the cult of the Earth-mother to such a pitch
of complex perfection as rendered its absorption of the allied Mexican
cults merely a matter of time and occasion.
That she was originally a personification of the maize is also clear.
In her songs she is alluded to as “the yellow bloom” and “the white
bloom,” and the references to her dwelling in Tamoanchan, the western
paradise where the maize was supposed to have had its mythical origin,
and where she gave birth to Cinteotl, the young maize-god, proves her
association with this food-plant. But she was also the Earth, the
insatiable, lustful mother, who gives birth to Cinteotl the young
maize-god, who is also the obsidian knife of sacrifice, for the Earth
is the mother of stone. As Sin, she was also the mother of death, for
Cinteotl in this guise was undoubtedly a god of fatality or doom.
Like many other deities of the earth she may have had an almost
plutonic significance, for she is called Tlalli Iyallo, “Heart of the
Earth.” But I think that Seler (Fejérváry-Mayer, p. 145) has mistaken
the true significance of this expression in applying to it the meaning
“interior of the earth.” The word “heart” in the Nahua tongue does not
necessarily mean “interior.” True, Tepeyollotl, the Earthquake-god,
possessed a similar designation, but on the other hand the Quiche Popol
Vuh alludes to the god Hurakan as “The Heart of Heaven,” and I take the
expression to mean in general “soul, spirit,” rather than “interior.”
But, again, deities of grain have very frequently a subterranean
association, and, according to Duran’s description of the feast of the
goddess, we find that she was supposed to make her coming known by an
earthquake shock, and she is ruler of the thirteenth week, ce olin,
which some authorities translate as “earthquake” or “earth-motion.”
All this notwithstanding, in later times it was as the goddess of
sensuality and lustfulness that Tlazolteotl made her strongest appeal
to the Mexican imagination. We have already seen how this transition
took place and how this attribute had its inception. In many climes the
figure of the fruitful and abundant Earth-goddess has its bestial,
revolting, and highly salacious side, and the Mexican earth-deity was
no exception to the almost general rule. In several pictures her symbol
is shown as a man devouring excrement (sin). She was the patroness of
prostitutes, and by a transition, the ethical character of which seems
to me obscure, she finally became the great pardoner of sexual
misdeeds.
Probably because they forfeited their lives in the act of bringing
forth, she came to be regarded as the chieftainess of those women who,
dying in childbed, went to inhabit the Ciutlampa, the house of the
women in the west. These female spirits were regarded by the Mexicans
as the equal of warriors who had died heroically in battle, and issued
daily from their paradise to accompany the sun in his afternoon course.
It is typical of these Ciuateteô, or deified women, that in their
jealousy of living people and their offspring, they exerted a noxious
influence upon mortals, especially upon children, at certain seasons,
and as the interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis states, they are
identified with European witches, flying through the air and meeting at
cross-roads. Now the broom is the symbol of the European witch, as it
is of Tlazolteotl, and in Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (sheet 17) we have a
picture of Tlazolteotl as representative of the Ciuateteô, naked and
riding upon a broomstick. In Codex Borgia (sheet 12) and Codex
Vaticanus B (sheet 30) beside her is figured a house with an owl
standing at the door, while in front hangs a string of dried medicinal
herbs, the whole representing the dwelling of a sorceress or
medicine-witch, for Tlazolteotl was also patroness of the medical
women, who danced at her festival, and Sahagun (bk. i, c. viii)
expressly states that she was venerated by the “physicians,” that is,
the medicine-men and wizards.
Probably by reason of her fecundity Tlazolteotl was also regarded as a
divinity who presided over human birth. She is frequently portrayed as
the great parturient and represents the womb [185] (Vaticanus B, sheet
51). But she does not breathe the spirit into the newly-born child or
transport it from the upper regions as does Quetzalcoatl, her office
being the lower one of presiding over the child-bed, a task which she
shares with other Mexican deities of vegetation and production.
Like other goddesses who preside over birth she may also have a lunar
connection. It is probable that the Huaxtec nose-ornament which she
wears in common with the octli-gods is a lunar symbol. [186] In Codex
Borgia (sheet 55) she is represented as standing opposite the moon, but
this may only indicate her connection with night and witchcraft. I am
of opinion, however, that Seler’s assumption that she is a moon-goddess
is not altogether capable of proof. On the other hand, goddesses of
vegetation and childbirth are frequently associated with the moon, and
his theory may be perfectly sound. We must remember, however, that in
his more recent works, just as the solar school of mythologists was
accused of “seeing sun-gods everywhere,” Seler has undoubtedly applied
a lunar significance to several deities whose characteristics he
formerly elucidated in totally different fashion.
The warlike nature of Tlazolteotl has already been dwelt upon and its
reason demonstrated in the section dealing with the ochpaniztli
festival.
CHICOMECOATL = “SEVEN SNAKE”
Area of Worship: Mexico.
Minor Name: Chicomolotl = “Seven Maize-ears.”
Relationship: Sister of Tlaloc.
Symbol: The double maize-ear (commaitl).
Festivals: Uei tozoztli, the fourth month; ochpaniztli, the
eleventh month.
Calendar Place: Seventh day of the seventh week; the day
chicomecoatl. (Sahagun states that all days containing a seven in
their name were regarded as auspicious on her account.)
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Aubin-Goupil Tonalamatl.—Sheet 7: The goddess is depicted as having a
red body and facial painting, and wears variegated raiment in which red
is the preponderating colour. On her head is a large square headdress,
also red in colour and decorated with rosettes at the four corners—such
a headdress, indeed, as Tlazolteotl wears at the ochpaniztli festival.
She holds in her hand the double maize-ear, which may be regarded as
her peculiar and distinctive emblem.
Codex Borbonicus.—In this codex she is seen wearing red paint and the
red garment, holding the double maize-ear, and carrying other
maize-ears in a receptacle on her back. Seler thinks that her red
colour is that of the granular bunch of the young maize-ear which she
represents, and that Tlazolteotl or Teteoinnan, who is painted yellow
and white, represents the ripe maize-ear.
Sahagun MS.—The Sahagun MS. states that Chicomecoatl’s face is coloured
red and that she wears a paper crown on her head and a collar of green
precious stones round her neck. She has an overdress and skirt of
spring flowers and wears bells and shells on her feet. Her shield has
the emblem of the summer flower painted upon its surface, and she
carries the double maize-ear in her hand.
MYTHS
The hymn to Chicomecoatl as given in the Sahagun MS. is as follows:
Goddess of the seven ears, arise, awake!
For, our mother, thou leavest us.
Thou returnest to Tlalocan.
Arise, awake!
Mother, thou leavest us now,
Thou goest to thy home in Tlalocan.
Which may, perhaps, be interpreted thus: The expression “seven ears” is
an allusion to the seven ears of maize, sprinkled with rubber oil and
wrapped in paper and cloth, which each maiden in a procession of
virgins carried to the temple of the goddess, the cinteopan, at the
festival of uei tozoztli (April 27th). The maize is now full grown and
the goddess’s labours are over for the time being, so that she is
enabled to return to Tlalocan, the paradise of her brother Tlaloc.
FESTIVALS
The Uei Tozoztli.—The first festival attributed to Chicomecoatl in the
calendar was the uei tozoztli, or the “great watch,” so called because
of the watch or wake kept in the houses of the people, accompanied by a
general fast. The best accounts of it are those of Sahagun [187] and
Torquemada. [188] In this rite the goddess was associated with
Cinteotl. After a four days’ fast, certain rushes were stained with
sacrificial blood and placed upon the images of the gods in both house
and temple. Branches of laurel and beds or mattresses of hay were
placed before the altars, and maize porridge was distributed to the
young men. The people walked in the fields cutting stalks of the young
maize, which they bedecked with flowers, placing them before the altars
of the gods in the calpulli, or common house of the village, along with
food-offerings of every kind, baskets of tortillas, or pancakes of
chian flour and toasted maize mixed with beans, each surmounted by a
cooked frog. On the back of the frog offered up with the tortillas they
placed a joint cut from a maize-stalk filled with small pieces of every
kind of the food offered up. Thus laden, the frog symbolized the earth,
bearing her fruits on her back. All this victual was carried in the
afternoon to the temple of Chicomecoatl, and eaten in a general
scramble. The ears of maize preserved for seed were carried in
procession by virgins to the temple of the goddess, each maiden bearing
seven ears of maize, sprinkled with ulli gum and wrapped in paper and
cloth. The legs and arms of these girls were ornamented with red
feathers and their faces were smeared with pitch and sprinkled with
marcassite. To these the crowd were forbidden to speak, but much
persiflage was, nevertheless, engaged in. The people then returned to
their houses, and the sanctified maize was placed in every granary and
corn-crib, was known as the “heart” thereof, and remained there until
taken out to be used as seed. It does not appear that human sacrifice
accompanied this festival, which seems to have represented ancient
rustic rites, the ritual of the family and the village, handed down
from very early times.
Ochpaniztli (“Sweeping of Temples”).—In this festival, held about the
beginning of September, the goddess played an important although by no
means the principal part, and as it is fully described in the pages
dealing with Tlazolteotl, it will suffice here to mention that the
rites accorded to Chicomecoatl on this occasion appear to have been
almost the same as those rendered at her first festival. The nature of
her connection with the other deities of maize is indicated in the
introduction to the section dealing with the earth and grain gods, and
her participation in the rites of the ochpaniztli perhaps exhibits the
zealous activity of an ancient cult in rivalry with a later and more
popular one. It would certainly seem as if Chicomecoatl had been
recognized in the ochpaniztli rites as an afterthought and for the
purpose of placating her priesthood, as much as for the honour of the
goddess herself, or that it was a protest on the part of the ministers
of her cult, who did not desire to see their divinity ignored at a
season at which she had probably been worshipped from time immemorial.
PRIESTHOOD
That Chicomecoatl had a priesthood specially consecrated to her is
manifest from the accounts of her festivals, and this must have been in
most respects similar in organization and character to those of
Cinteotl (the Cinteotzin), Tlazolteotl, and Xipe. That she had also a
corps of priestesses or holy women attached to her worship is equally
clear from the same source. But we learn nothing of their precise
status or polity from any of the old authorities.
TEMPLES
Chicomecoatl appears to have had two temples, both situated within the
precincts of the great temple at Mexico. The first was the Chicomecoatl
iteopan (“Temple of Chicomecoatl”) and the other the Cinteopan (“Maize
Temple”), which, however, must not be confounded with that sacred to
Cinteotl.
NATURE AND STATUS
Chicomecoatl is obviously the ancient and indigenous maize-goddess of
the Mexican Valley, whose worship had existed from early times. The
statement by the interpreter in Codex Telleriano-Remensis that she
caused famines is most certainly an error and much more applicable to
Ciuacoatl. The identification of her in the same place with
Tonacaciuatl, the female companion of the creative deity, is probably
correct, as she seems to have been an agricultural variant of the old
earth-mother. Chicomecoatl was the patroness of the food supply, who,
says Sahagun, “was the goddess of subsistence,” and “the original maker
of bread and victuals and cookery in general,” and whose sign radiated
good fortune and happy influences. In this goddess, as viewed through
the medium of the observances practised at her festival, we see,
perhaps, the old and indigenous earth-goddess as the helper and
foster-parent of the younger earth-mother, Tlazolteotl, for the grain
of the year before was hers and was placed in the granaries to “help”
or form a nucleus to the new grain. Again, it was perhaps natural that
the elder earth-goddess should preside over the old grain used for
seed, and the younger goddess over the grain which had not yet come to
fruition. In many countries two grain-spirits, mother and daughter,
appear in the agricultural pantheon. In Breton custom the
mother-sheaf—a figure made out of the last sheaf—bears within it a
lesser bundle, which is regarded as the unborn daughter; and in
Prussia, Malaysia, Scotland, and Greece, this double personification of
the corn was or is in vogue.
CINTEOTL = “MAIZE-GOD”
Territory: Totonac; Aztec; Xochimilco.
Minor Names:
Ce Xochitl = “One Flower” (date).
Chicomoltotzin = “Seven Ears.”
Relationship: Son of Tlazolteotl; husband of Xochiquetzal.
Symbol: The god’s head with maize headdress (as in Bologna
tonalamatl).
Festivals: Uei tozoztli; ochpaniztli.
Compass Directions: North; West.
Calendar Place:
Fourth of the Nine Lords of the Night.
Seventh of the Thirteen Lords of the Day.
(Codex Borbonicus, sheet 20.)
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 52: In this place Cinteotl is figured as a male
deity of yellow colour and with a peculiar black, angular, longitudinal
band on the face and bearing a load of maize-ears on his back. In one
hand he carries the rain-staff and in the other the throwing-stick.
Sheet 14: In this illustration he is clearly recognized as the
Maize-god by the maize-ears and the maize-blooms which he wears in his
fillet or on his head. In other respects his insignia resembles that of
the Sun-god in its flame-coloured hair, the jewelled head-strap with
the conventional bird’s head on the frontal side, the large gold disk
on his breast, and on the nape of the neck the rosette painted in the
colours of the green jewel chalchihuitl.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 20: He wears on his head a notched crown like
that of the earth, mountain, and rain gods, except that it is painted
green and yellow, the colours of the maize. It is fastened with a tie
at the occiput, which adornment is painted in like colours and
resembles the knot worn by these deities. As with the Rain-god, it
shows the long, dark hair hanging down below it. On his breast he
wears, attached to a chain of jewelled beads, an ornament which is
painted in the colours of the chalchihuitl and from which hang jewelled
thongs. The loin-cloth is in the colours of the maize, showing
alternate yellow and green cross-bands.
Aubin Tonalamatl.—Sheet 8: Here he is represented opposite Mayauel. On
his back he wears a plumed staff with a heart. In his hand he holds the
quetzal feather-flag.
MYTHS
Cinteotl was regarded by the Mexicans as having been born of the
goddess Tlazolteotl in the sacred western region of Tamoanchan (the
House of Birth), which they looked upon as the original home of the
maize-plant. A song sung at the atamalqualiztli festival is as follows:
Born is the Maize-god
In the House of Descent,
In the place where the flowers are,
The god One-flower.
The Maize-god is born
In the place of water and of mist,
Where the children of men are made.
In the jewel Michoacan.
He is also associated with the flower-gods in certain strophes of the
song to these divinities:
On the ball-ground the quetzalcoxcoxtli sings;
The Maize-god answers him.
Beautifully sings our friend the quetzal,
In the twilight of the red maize god.
My song shall be heard by the lord of the twilight,
The god with the thigh-skin face-painting.
I came to the place where the roads meet,
I, the Maize-god.
Where shall I now go?
Which way shall I take?
This song I would interpret as follows: The game of tlachtli, a
description of hockey, is in some measure associated with the
maize-gods. The quetzalcoxcoxtli bird is Xochipilli, the Flower-god,
with whom Cinteotl is closely associated, and who is connected with
games of all kinds, stone effigies of him being set up in the tlachtli
courts. Cinteotl is a god who emanates from the west, and is associated
with the twilight. At his festival a piece of skin was stripped from
the thigh of the female victim and made into a mask for his priest. The
place where the roads meet is evidently the haunting-place of the
Ciuapipiltin or Ciuateteô, women who died in childbed, of whom
Tlazolteotl, Cinteotl’s mother, was the patroness. The god complains
that he has a difficulty in finding his way at the cross-roads. This
was the precise reason for which they were made, that the Ciupipiltin
or haunting mothers should be puzzled by them, or “wandered,” as the
Scottish expression is. Witches all the world over are baffled by
cross-roads, and formerly the bodies of suicides were buried beneath
them, so that, did their spirits arise, they would be puzzled by the
multiplicity of directions and be baffled in their intent to haunt the
living.
FESTIVALS
The first festival with which Cinteotl was associated was the uei
tozoztli, held in April. After a four days’ fast, the houses were
decked with irises and sprinkled with blood drawn from the ears and the
front of the legs, and the nobles and wealthier folk decorated their
houses with the boughs of a plant called axcoyatl. [189] Search was
made in the fields for the young stalks of maize, which were decked
with flowers and placed before the gods, along with food. The goddess
Chicomecoatl was also revered at this festival. At the ochpaniztli
festival, too, in honour of his mother Tlazolteotl, Cinteotl was
peculiarly venerated, and a full account of the proceedings will be
found in the pages referring to Tlazolteotl. It is necessary, however,
to refer in passing to one custom, that in connection with which the
thigh-skin of the female victim was stripped off and carried to the
temple of Cinteotl, where it was made into a mask which the priest of
the god placed over his face. [190] He also wore a jacket and hood of
feathers, resembling the naualli or bird-disguise of the god—the
coxcoxtli, which seems to have represented both Cinteotl and
Xochipilli, and to have formed a kind of bond between them. The crest
of the hood resembled the comb of a cock, and whilst possibly having
the significance of a bird’s comb, was also held to symbolize the
sharp-cutting flint knife of sacrifice (see Tlazolteotl). Lastly, the
horrible relics of the festival were conveyed by the Cinteotl priest
and a picked body-guard to a hut on the frontier, where they were left,
for what purpose I am able to form no definite opinion. [191]
TEMPLES
Several temples appear to have been dedicated to the worship of
Cinteotl at Mexico, but as the names of these sometimes imply a
collective dedication to the maize-gods, it is somewhat difficult to
ascertain precisely which of the edifices was peculiar to Cinteotl.
However, the Iztac cinteotl iteopan, or temple of the deity of white
maize, at Mexico, more probably refers to Cinteotl’s place of worship,
as Sahagun states, than to that of any other deity. Here, says the
friar, were sacrificed leprous captives, who were slain during the days
of fasting in honour of the sun, when that luminary was at its greatest
height. [192] In the Cinteopan was to be seen a statue of Cinteotl,
before which captives were sacrificed on the occasion of his festival.
The temple of Tlatauhqui Cinteotl (red maize) appears to have been the
preserve of the maize-gods collectively.
PRIESTHOOD
That Cinteotl had a separate and distinct priesthood is manifest from
allusions to it in accounts of his festivals. Among the Totonacs two
high-priests were especially dedicated to him. These were widowers over
sixty years of age, who wore jackets made from the skins of jackals,
were not permitted to eat fish, and whose duty consisted in the
preparation of manuscripts and the deliverance of oracular messages.
The Totonacs thought human sacrifices unnecessary to him, and offered
up birds and small animals at his shrine, regarding him as their
protector from the more sanguinary deities, says Clavigero. [193]
NATURE AND STATUS
It would appear from the data at our disposal that Cinteotl was
originally a maize-god of the Totonacs, a people allied in race to the
Maya-speaking Huaxtecs of the east coast. It will be recalled that his
mother, Tlazolteotl, was of Huaxtec origin. Cinteotl may originally
have been regarded by the Maya-speaking coast people as her son, or
again the relationship between them may have been symbolic and
relatively late in its development. But the myth appears as ancient and
well founded, and the corn-mother who has a son or daughter is
noticeable in many mythologies.
Although Cinteotl is alluded to as a goddess by Clavigero and other
writers, it is abundantly clear that his godhead is of the male order,
as the pictures which represent him prove. Seler lays stress upon his
absolute identification with Xochipilli and Macuilxochitl, but although
resemblances certainly exist, it seems to me that there are as many
points of difference between these gods and that the likeness was the
outcome of later development. Thus it can be shown by Seler’s own
conclusions that, whereas Xochipilli was the patron of gaming and sport
and light-hearted amusement, Cinteotl, on the other hand, was symbolic
of that death which is the offspring of sin. [194]
Cinteotl’s mother, Tlazolteotl, the goddess of lust, undoubtedly
typifies sin, and her son symbolizes the death which follows it and is
its wages, the sharp knife of sacrifice. The indented cap he wears is
typical of this implement, and was known as itzlacoliuhqui (“frost”),
an expression which is also translated as “death” and which is
occasionally employed of Tezcatlipocâ in his phase of god of justice.
But Cinteotl had another connection with the plutonic, such as is
possessed by many grain-gods, and must, like Hades and Ishtar, be
regarded as a deity of the Underworld, the place of the dead, the realm
in which the seed germinates ere it sprouts above ground. He was the
tutelary deity of the goldsmiths of Xochimilco, oddly enough, it seems
to us, until we recall the resemblance between the ripe maize-cob and
the work of the native jewellers. [195]
It is, however, as the young maize-god—the maize in its tender and
half-ripened condition—that he must be chiefly regarded, and that he
was looked upon by the ancient Mexicans. He strongly resembles the Maya
god E.
CIUACOATL = “SERPENT WOMAN”
Area of Worship: Colhuacan and Xochimilco.
Minor Names:
Quilaztli = “Obsidian Plant” (?).
Quauhciuatl = “Woman-eagle.”
Yaociuatl = “Woman-warrior.”
Tonantzin = “Our Mother.”
Relationship: Mother of Mixcoatl; sister of the Centzon Mimixcoa.
Symbol: Obsidian knife.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
General.—In Codex Borgia (sheet 60) she appears as one of the two
heads, or faces, of Quaxolotl, a female face framed by long, streaming
hair, with the fleshless under-jaw and the exposed teeth of a dead
person’s skull.
The Sahagun MS. describes her as having a face painted half-red,
half-black, with a thick smear of indiarubber round the lips. She wears
a crown of eagle-feathers and a golden ear-plug. Her overdress is “the
colour of spring flowers” (red), and she also has an undergarment with
a fringe, and a white enagua, or skirt. Her costume is adorned with
shells and she wears sandals. Her shield is inset with eagle’s
feathers.
An ancient song to her states that she carries a rattle-stick. She has
a shield-device similar to that of Chantico, with whom she seems to be
a parallel.
MYTHS
In the “Song of the Earth-goddesses,” Ciuacoatl is alluded to as
follows:
The eagle Quilaztli is painted with serpent’s blood;
Her crown is made of eagle-feathers.
The high cypresses of the Chalmecâ land shelter her.
The maize has come;
On the fields of the gods
She leans on the rattle-staff.
In my hand rests the agave thorn;
On the fields of the gods
She leans on her rattle-staff.
The broom is in my hand;
On the fields of the gods
She leans on the rattle-staff.
Thirteen eagles is our mother, goddess of the Chalmecâ;
The spear of the prickly plant lays me low;
It is my son Mixcoatl.
Our mother the warrior.
The deer from Colhuacan,
She is stuck with feathers.
Morning has dawned
The order to the warriors has gone forth.
Drag the captives hence,
The whole land shall be destroyed.
The deer from Colhuacan,
She is stuck with feathers.
Those who fight bravely in war
Are painted with eagle-feathers. [196]
This wild song may be interpreted as follows:
The aspect of the goddess is described. She rests (as do Uitzilopochtli
and other gods) under the shade of the cypress trees. The maize is
about to be planted, and she bears in her hand the rattle-staff or
rain-rattle, carried by all the earth- and rain-gods and their priests,
with which she brings down the rain by dint of sympathetic magic and
which implement was also symbolic of fruitfulness or sexual union.
[197] The worshipper takes the agave thorn in his hand wherewith to
pierce his tongue and other members, so that the blood thus obtained
may produce rain for the growth of the maize. The broom alluded to is a
symbol of the earth-goddesses, and was made of hard, stiff, pointed
grass, cut with sickles in the mountainous forests of Popocatepetl and
Ajusco (see Tlazolteotl). “Thirteen eagles” is a date in the
tonalamatl, the last day of the division ce calli. It was connected
with the Ciuateteô, the vengeful women who died in childbed, of whom
Tlazolteotl is the prototype. The “spear of the prickly plant” (cactus)
is the weapon of Mixcoatl, son of the goddess, and is here probably
alluded to as the lightning which accompanies the rainfall in Mexico,
for Mixcoatl is the “Cloud-Serpent,” “the lightning-god.” Or the
worshipper may complain of weakness from loss of blood shed as an
offering by his use of the agave thorn. The warlike nature of Ciuacoatl
is next alluded to. She was evidently identified at Cuitlauac, and
Xochimilco, with the two-headed deer, an animal frequently connected
with the worship of the nomadic Chichimecs, as was Mixcoatl, her son.
She is stuck with eagle feathers or down, like the successful warrior
who had captured an enemy. The warriors must now depart to seek for
further victims. The whole song is eloquent of the connection of the
earth-cult with war and human sacrifice.
Ciuacoatl is spoken of by Duran and Sahagun as a warrior goddess who
gave the Mexicans victory over their enemies, and by Torquemada [198]
as the elder sister of the Mimixcoa, the stellar gods of the steppe.
She it was, too, who, according to another myth, pounded the human
bones brought by Quetzalcoatl from the Underworld into a paste, from
which men were formed—an allusion to the belief current in Mexico that
man was made, or at least “built up,” from maize. [199] Sahagun says of
her [200] that she dispensed adverse fortune, poverty, abjectness, and
misery. She was wont to appear to men in the guise of a richly dressed
lady, such as frequented the court. Through the night she wandered,
howling and bellowing. Occasionally she was seen carrying a cradle, and
when she vanished, examination showed that the resting-place of what
was believed to be an infant contained nothing but an obsidian knife,
such as was used in human sacrifice. [201] There are also indications
that she presided over childbirth.
TEMPLES
Ciuacoatl had a temple called the Tlillan Calmecac, or “Black College,”
where dwelt those priests devoted to her service. [202]
NATURE AND STATUS
The circumstance that Ciuacoatl appears with the skull of a dead person
leads to the conclusion that, besides being an earth-deity, she had
phantom or underworld characteristics—a common connection for a
grain-goddess. From her hymn we gather that she has a magical influence
over the plantation and growth of the maize. She is, perhaps, a
prototype of the Ciuateteô, the disappointed and vengeful women who had
died in their first childbed, and the myth of her cradle containing the
sacrificial knife is eloquent of the connection of the Earth-goddess
with human sacrifice. Her martial character, also, is apparent and is a
concomitant of her agricultural and sacrificial significance. From her
association with Mixcoatl, the Mimixcoa, the Chichimec gods, as from
her name, Quilaztli, and her symbol it is evident that she is connected
with the Chichimec or native Indian cult. Her connection with childbed
is clear from one of the addresses given by Sahagun, who states that
the midwife exhorted the woman in childbed to be strong and valiant as
was Ciuacoatl. “Who first bore children,” in allusion to a myth
mentioned by Gama (pt. i, p. 39), who says that she gave birth to two
children, male and female, whence sprung the human race—a story I have
failed to trace elsewhere, except in Clavigero.
COATLICUE = “SERPENT-SKIRT”
Area of Worship: Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
Minor Name: Coatlantonan = “Our Serpent Mother.”
Relationship: Mother of Uitzilopochtli by Mixcoatl; mother of
Coyolxauhqui and the Centzonuitznaua; wife of Tezcatzoncatl or
Izquitecatl.
Festival: Feast of the flower-sellers in the second month,
tlacaxipeuliztli.
Symbol: The eagle’s foot.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Sahagun MS.—The face of the goddess is painted with white infusorial
earth of the kind known as tiçitl. She wears a crown of eagle-feathers
and a white overdress. Her skirt is formed of serpents, as her name
implies. On her feet she wears white sandals and shells. Her shield is
inset with eagle-feathers, and she bears a serpent-staff in her hand.
STATUES
Much argument has circled around the colossal statue of Coatlicue (see
Introduction) which formerly adorned one of the entrances to the great
temple of Mexico, and which was evidently supported by upright stones,
so that it formed the key-stone of a gateway where it could be seen by
all who passed in and out of the temple. It has been assigned to more
than one goddess, and when it was disinterred amongst other relics in
the course of making new drains in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico in August
1790, it was placed in the court of the university and there worshipped
by the Indians, who decked it with flowers. The Mexican antiquaries,
relying on a statement by Boturini [203] in which he states that
Uitzilopochtli was accompanied by the goddess “Teoyaomiqui,” regarded
the two-faced idol as being bi-sexual and as a composite figure of both
gods, and this notion was perpetuated by Gama in his Dos Piedras.
Payne, in his History of the New World, appends a long and very “sane”
note to his description of it, sneers at the conclusions of the Mexican
antiquaries, and states, somewhat dogmatically, that it must be
regarded as a representation of Chicomecoatl. But it is undoubtedly
Coatlicue. In the first place that goddess had a right to a position in
the temple of Uitzilopochtli as his mother, secondly the idol wears the
skirt of serpents which is implied in her name. But this
notwithstanding, the stone figure has obviously a symbolical meaning as
illustrating the whole circumstances of human sacrifice. The head is
formed by the junction of the heads of two serpents, which symbolize
the two streams of blood welling out from a decapitated body. The
flayed skin of the victim is hung in front and is shown knotted behind
as in the statue of Xipe found at the Castillo de Teayo. The cups from
which octli was drunk are stuck in front of the flayed human skin, and
a skull adorns the serpent-skirt before and behind. Through all these
attributes, however, the personality of the serpent-woman goddess can
be sensed as much as observed. [204]
Other statues and paintings of Coatlicue uphold the theory that she is
represented by this idol. One found in the Calle de las Escalerillas,
and others recovered from the Calle de Coliseo in Mexico City, show her
as having the face of a skull. In the latter she wears a peculiar flat
headdress with maize-like motifs depending from the back, and her hair
recalls the ruffled “night-hair” of Mictlantecutli. Around her body are
strange step-motifs which constitute the ends of parallel lines; and
from her ears depend large cotton plugs. She wears a girdle of skulls
with serpentine noses. Another relief of her found in the Calle de las
Escalerillas is, however, much more enlightening than the foregoing. In
this spirited work she wears what is evidently a panache of stone
knives or malinalli grass, the face is that of a skull, she has the
claws of a jaguar, and the skirt of entwined serpents is noticeable. Be
all this as it may, however, the insignia of the goddess is by no means
a fixed quantity, and considerable research is necessary before
anything like certainty can be arrived at.
MYTH
Sahagun (bk. iii, c. i) related of this goddess that near the ancient
city of Tulla or Tulan rose the mountain of Coatepec (“Serpent
Mountain”), where lived a woman named Coatlicue, mother of certain
“Indians” called Cenzonuitznaua. She had a daughter called
Coyolxauhqui. Coatlicue, who was a widow and very devout, climbed each
day to the mountain of Coatepec to do penance, and on one occasion, as
she reached its summit, a little ball of feathers resembling a roll of
thread or twine fell upon her. Picking it up, she placed it in her
bosom, and later was unable to find it. Shortly afterwards she became
enceinte. Her children, observing her condition, were indignant, and
Coyolxauhqui advised her brothers to slay their mother for the shame
she had put upon them. Her unborn infant whispered to her to be of good
cheer. But one day her sons armed themselves and prepared to slay her.
One of them, however, called Quauitlicac, whispered to the supernatural
child that treason was toward, and at the moment when, headed by
Coyolxauhqui, Coatlicue’s children came to dispatch her, Uitzilopochtli
was born, fully armed. Falling upon his brothers and sister with his
terrible weapon, the xiuhcoatl, or fiery serpent, he speedily
dispatched them all. [205]
FESTIVAL
Tlacaxipeuliztli.—Sahagun (bk. ii, c. 22) relates that on the second
day of this month the people of the temple quarter of Coatlan offered
flowers in the temple and made music during the entire day in honour of
Coatlicue. These flowers were the first-fruits of the year, were
offered up by the master florists, who had a great devotion to the
goddess, and none of the blossoms in their gardens might be smelt until
these bouquets had been offered up in the temple of Coatlicue. They
made for this feast tamallis called tzatzapaltamalli (“sharp-tasting
herb cakes”).
NATURE AND STATUS
Coatlicue is, in one of her aspects, undoubtedly the flower-covered
earth of spring, from whom, as it were, the sun (Uitzilopochtli) is
reborn. Her serpent-skirt is probably symbolic of the circumstance
that, at the season which she represents, the earth is clothed with the
rain as with a garment. The myth which makes her a pious widow is
obviously of late, and probably of hierophantic, origin. In my view
Uitzilopochtli is chiefly her son in his naualli or disguise of a
humming-bird. The humming-bird sucks from the breasts of earth as a
child from its mother’s. But the myth is highly conglomerate, and, as
we possess it, is obviously the result of the fusion of several varying
conceptions of the two principal figures. Coatlicue’s appearance as a
serpent in her great statue which has been described above, and her
name of Coatlantonan, “Our Serpent Mother,” in my view tend to identify
her with the earth in its form of dragon, serpent, or cipactli,
regarding which hypothesis the reader is referred to my remarks in the
Introduction.
It is not improbable that, like Xochiquetzal, Coatlicue is one of those
mountain goddesses from whose sacred heights the rain descended upon
the parched fields. This seems likely from the name of her abode,
Coatepetl (“Serpent Mountain”), the serpents of which her skirt is
composed being symbolical, perhaps, of the stream flowing from the
tarns or pools situated on its lower acclivities. That such a mountain
actually existed in the vicinity of Tollan is proved by the statement
of Sahagun. Uitzilopochtli (q.v.) is thus the sun which rises out of
the mountain, or is “born” from it, armed with the xiuhcoatl, or
fire-snake, the red dawn, with which he slays his sister Coyolxauhqui,
whose insignia show her to represent the moon, and puts the stars to
flight.
XOCHIQUETZAL = “FLOWER FEATHER”
Area of Worship: Plateau of Anahuac; Tlaxcallan; Tlalhuica.
Minor Names:
Ce atl = “One Water.”
Ce Mazatl (Calendar date) = “One Deer.”
Mazateotl = “Deer Goddess.”
Calendar Place: Ruler of the twentieth day (xochitl) and of the
nineteenth “week” (ce quauhtli).
Compass Direction: West.
Festivals:
Tepeilhuitl (Tlalhuica).
Quecholli (Tlaxcallan).
Chicome xochitl (Mexico).
Relationship: The first woman, and thus companion of Piltzintecutli
(the Sun-god); otherwise, wife of Tlaloc, abducted by Tezcatlipocâ.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 9: Here the goddess is represented as wearing an
upper garment of diversified pattern, finished with a variegated
edging. Her shawl is painted in the chalchihuitl colours, and from it
depend two strings or ribbons of a dark shade, completed with a flower.
Her nose-plate is blue and is formed rather after the fashion of the
butterfly design, while her helmet-mask represents a quetzal-bird. In
sheet 58 she is vis-à-vis with the Death-god and is garbed like an
earth-deity with a many-coloured robe. Her hair is dressed like that of
the Zapotec women, that is, two tresses are twisted up like horns and
secured with parti-coloured bands. On the same sheet (next picture) she
confronts one of her servitors or priests (tlamacazque), and her
garments in this place are very similar to those already described. In
the next illustration the only addition to her costume is a wreath of
flowers, but under her arm she holds a quetzal-bird and sits opposite a
red Tezcatlipocâ. On sheet 59 she is represented in the first place
opposite the tlamacazque, and in the following picture confronts a
naked prostitute. Between these figures is her servitor, surprised in
the act of pressing the courtesan’s breasts. This female is
characterized by her wearing of Xochiquetzal’s shawl, hair-dressing,
and the hieroglyph of the warrior caste (shield and spears) shown above
her head. In the lowest row of the same sheet the goddess is seen
opposite the Vulture-god, Tlacacozcaquauhtli. In the following sheets
of the codex her aspect and garb are practically similar to those
described above, with the exception of sheet 60, where she appears in
the act of parturition, with the double head and certain of the
insignia of Quaxolotl, being delivered by Quetzalcoatl in the character
of Xolotl. In the region of her mouth is an angular line of red.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 42: Here Xochiquetzal is adorned by a wreath
of flowers and faces her servant. On sheet 41 we observe that her cheek
is painted with a round red spot, like that of the Sun-god, whilst her
head is adorned with quetzal-feathers, and the quetzal-bird is held
under her arm. She is ensconced on a jaguar skin, and on her head is
the wreath of flowers with two feather tufts, which is especially
characteristic of her. On her face is depicted a red, angular line.
Opposite is the figure of her priest, and between them is a headless
woman, whose head is replaced by a flowering tree. On sheet 39 she is
shown as wearing a quetzal-bird mask and a blue, step-shaped
nose-plate, while her face-paint is elaborately executed. In this
picture is seen issuing from her body a quetzal-feather ornament,
symbolic of a newly-born child. In one hand she holds a jewelled
ornament, and in the other an ear of maize, and she wears the opossum
wristlets applied to women in travail. Her new-born twins are seated
beside her. In another part of this codex she is represented as facing
various male deities in characteristic positions, which are evidently
more typical of her personality than any insignia.
Codex Laud.—Sheet 38: She is here represented facing the tlamacazque in
a kneeling attitude, with her hair dressed in a peculiar manner. Sheet
35 shows her similarly represented to her picture in Codex Vaticanus B,
sheet 39. Her twins are seated one on the instep curve of each foot.
Pottery Figures.—Various pottery figures of the goddess found in the
Valley of Mexico are to be seen in the Uhde Collection, Berlin. In one
of these she is represented holding an infant, and her general attire
agrees with the manuscript representations of her. Her hair is dressed
in the Zapotec style, rising up in two horns and secured with plaited
bands. The shawl or tippet with a V-shape in front is a constant
factor, and in one example is scalloped, in another plain, while in the
third it ends in the chalchihuitl ornament and a bead or ball-fringing.
In the Seler collection is a curious little statuette from Cholula, in
which the goddess is again represented as carrying a child. She wears a
flat cap, almost like that of a cook or chef, the precise significance
of which escapes me, unless it be a local headdress, as some other
examples in the same collection would seem to prove. In a relief found
at Zanja de la Piedra Labrada, near Castillo de Teayo, she is
represented opposite Tlaloc, as if to show her connection with rain.
Her headdress in this place would seem to be a compromise between the
Zapotec hairdressing and a motif representative of florescence. She
wears the same V-shaped tippet, which is here adorned with three
tassels, and she has the stepped nose-ornament. In her right hand she
carries a sceptre of water-rushes, the same as that held by Tlaloc, and
in her left the staff commonly seen in the representation of gods in
the Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio), and which seems to me to be a
development of the chicaunaztli, or rain-rattle.
MYTHS
Perhaps the most important of these is that found in the Sahagun
collection of songs or hymns (the ninth item):
Out of the land of the rain and the mist
I, Xochiquetzal, come.
Out of Tamoanchan.
The pious Piltzintecutli weeps;
He seeks Xochiquetzal.
To the land of corruption I must go.
The goddess here declares that, like other fertility goddesses, she
comes from the fruitful supernatural country of Tamaonchan, the home of
the maize. Piltzintecutli, the Sun-god, seeks her, but, like Ishtar in
Babylonian myth, she must betake herself to the Underworld, until it is
once more time to resume her growth-assisting labours. We have here
good grounds for positing the existence of a popular myth which would
seem to have recounted how the divine lovers dwelt happily in
Tamoanchan until Xochiquetzal was forced to quit the blest abode or was
carried off, and was sought for by the Sun-god, a myth like that of
Proserpine or Orpheus. It may refer to the sun seeking the flower, or
may have a bearing upon the myth of Ixnextli, a variant of
Xochiquetzal, who was expelled from Paradise, and of whom the
interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says: “Ixnextli, who is the same as
Eve, is always weeping, her eyes dim with ashes, a rose in her hand,
emblematical of her grief, being in consequence of her having gathered
it. And accordingly they celebrate a fast every eight years on account
of this calamitous event; the fast was on bread and water. They fasted
on the eight signs preceding the entrance of the rose, and when that
sign arrived, they prepared themselves for the celebration of the
festival. They affirm that every series of five days comprised in this
calendar was dedicated to this fall, because on such a day Eve sinned.
They were accordingly enjoined to bathe themselves on this night in
order to escape disease.” Regarding this myth the interpreter of the
Codex Telleriano-Remensis says: “They represented her as Eve always
weeping and looking at her husband, Adam. She is called Ysnextli, which
signifies ‘eyes blind with ashes’; and this refers to the time
subsequent to her sinning by plucking the roses. They accordingly
declare that they are still unable to look up to heaven, and in
recollection of the happy state which she lost, they fasted every eight
years on account of this fall.” It is significant that the goddess
pictured beside this statement is called “Suchiquezal.”
Diego Muñoz Camargo, in his Historia de Tlaxcala, equates Xochiquetzal
with Venus and states that: “She dwells above the nine heavens in a
very pleasant and delectable place, accompanied and guarded by many
people and waited on by other women of the rank of goddesses, where are
many delights of fountains, brooks, flower-gardens, and without her
wanting for anything, and that where she sojourned she was guarded and
sheltered from the gaze of the people, and that in her retinue she had
a great many dwarfs and hunchbacks, jesters, and buffoons, who
entertained her with music and dancing and whom she sent as her
confidants and messengers to the other gods, and that their chief
occupation was the spinning and weaving of sumptuous artistic fabrics,
and that they were painted so beautifully and elegantly that nothing
finer could be found amongst mortals. But the place where she dwelt was
called Tamohuanichan Xochitl ihcacan, Chicuhnauh-nepaniuhcan,
Itzehecaya, that is, ‘the house of the descent or of birth, the place
where are the flowers, the ninefold enchained, the place of the fresh,
cool winds.’ And every year she was honoured with a great feast, to
which many people from all parts were gathered in her temple.” He
continues: “They say that she had formerly been the spouse of the
Rain-god, Tlaloc, but that Tezcatlipocâ had abducted her, and brought
her to the nine heavens, and made her the goddess of love. And then
there was another goddess, Matlalcuêyê, the goddess to whom were
attributed witchcraft and soothsaying. Her Tlaloc had made his consort
after Tezcatlipocâ had carried off his wife Xochiquetzal.” [206]
Another myth, given by Boturini, recounts her temptation of the holy
ascetic Yappan, who dwelt in a desert place in order to lead a
continent and solitary life, so that he might win the favour of the
gods. He took up his abode on a rock called Tehuehuetl, but the gods
conceived a doubt of his piety, and sent an enemy of his, Yaotl
(enemy), to watch his movements. Even this bitter foe found nothing to
cavil at in his conduct, and women sent by the gods to lead him from
the paths of rectitude were sternly repulsed. The divine beings were
about to consider his apotheosis, when Xochiquetzal, feeling that her
reputation as a tempter of men was at stake, angrily assured them that
she was able to effect his seduction. Descending to earth, she sought
out the hermit, whom she assured of her admiration and esteem, and
asked by what path she might ascend to his rocky seat. All unsuspicious
of her intent, Yappan descended from his place on the rock and assisted
her to climb the rugged eminence. Yappan forgot his vow of chastity,
and when the goddess had departed, found himself deserted by the angry
gods to the mercies of his enemy, Yaotl, who slew him out of hand. The
gods transformed the slain man into a scorpion, and Yaotl having also
slain Yappan’s wife, Tlahuitzin, whom he had abandoned for the life
ascetic, she was transformed into an animal of the same species, and
crawling under a stone, found her husband there. But the gods, wrathful
at Yaotl’s excessive cruelty, changed him into a locust. [207]
FESTIVALS
Chicomexochitl (“Seven Flower”).—In the sign ce ocelotl, on the day
chicomexochitl, the artists united to hold festival to the goddess, and
the laundresses, says Sahagun, [208] fasted forty days. “They joined
together, twenty or more, to obtain a better quality of pictures and
weaves and to this end offered up quails and incense.” This was one of
the movable feasts.