Coatlicue
Coatlicue (Ciuacoatl, Civocoatl, Cihuacoatl, Coatlantona, Conteotl) (the serpent lady, robe of serpent) In Aztec mythology, mother of the Sun as well as his wife and sister, appearing in numerous forms throughout Aztec mythology as both beneficent and Demonic. She was also the mother of Quetzalcoatl.
According to Fray Bernardino Sahagún in his Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Coatlicue was responsible for giving people “poverty, mental depression, and sorrows.” She would often appear in the marketplace dressed as a lady of rank and leave a cradle in which was found a lance point later used in human sacrifices.
Fray Diego Durán in his Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de tierra firme relates that Montezuma II sent representatives to find the origin of his ancestors. They discovered a hill containing seven caves. A priest appeared and introduced them to an old woman, ugly and dirty, whose “face was so black and covered with filth that she looked like something straight out of Hell.”
The woman was Coatlicue. She welcomed the ambassadors and said she was the mother of the god Huitzilopochtli. She had been fasting since the day the god left and not washing or combing her hair, waiting for his return from the Aztec land. As the messengers prepared to leave, she called to them, telling them that in her land no one grew old. She then told them to watch as one of her servants ran down a hill and became younger as he reached the bottom.
The ambassadors watched the man become younger as he descended and old again when he ascended the hill. One of the most prominent manifestations of Coatlicue was as the deity of grain, in which role she would appear in both male and female forms under the name of Centeotl. Centeotl was often portrayed as a frog with numerous breasts, symbolic of the wet earth, according to some commentators.
Her face was painted yellow, the color of corn. During her festivals the priests wore phallic emblems in the hope of inducing Centeotl to provide crops for the coming year. Another important manifestation was as an earth goddess. She appeared with a huge open mouth and ferocious teeth, and was dressed all in white.
Durán says that when the Aztecs won a great victory under the leadership of Montezuma II, Prince Cihuacoatl, who was named after the goddess, “attired himself in the garb of the goddess Cihuacoatl.” These were the female clothes that were called “eagle garments.”
An Aztec statue of Coatlicue in the Mexican Anthropological Museum portrays the cosmic aspects of the goddess as the great mother, who brings life and death. Coatlicue was also known as and identified with Tonantzin (our mother), Ilamatecuhtli (old goddess), Tlatecutli (earth toad swallowing stone knife), Temazalteci (grandmother of the sweat bath), Itzpapalotl (obsidian butterfly), and as goddess of fate, portrayed as a beautiful woman with the symbols of death on her face.
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SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow-Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante