Coatlicue: Encyclopedia - Coatlicue

Coatlicue

Coatlicue (in náhuatl "the one with the skirt of serpents") also known as Teteoinan (Teteo Inan) "The Mother of Gods" gave birth to the moon, stars and Huitzilopochtli (god of sun and war). Also known as Toci "Our Grandmother" and known as Cihuacoatl patron of women who die in childbirth.

Coatlicue known in Aztec mythology as "Mother Goddess of the Earth" who gives birth to all celestial things, "Goddess of Fire and Fertility", "Goddess of Life, Death and Rebirth" and "Mother of the Southern Stars". Is represented as a woman wearing a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands and skulls. Her feet and hands were adorned with claws (for digging graves) and her breasts were depicted as hanging flaccid from nursing. Coatlicue keeps on her chest the hands, hearts and skulls of her children so they can be purified in their mother's chest.

Almost all representation of this goddess depict her deadly side, because Earth aside from loving mother is the insatiable monster that consumes everything that lives. She represents the devouring mother, in whom both the womb and the grave exist.

Legend has it that she was magically impregnated, while remaining virgin, by a ball of feathers that fell on her while she was sweeping a temple. She gave birth to Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl. In a fit of wrath her four hundred children, who were encouraged by Coyolxauhqui (her daughter), decapitated her. The god Huitzilopochtli afterward emerged from Coatlicue's womb fully grown and girded for battle and killed many of his brothers and sisters, including decapitating Coyolxauhqui and throwing her head into the sky to become the Moon. In a variation of this legend, Huitzilopochtli himself is conceived by the ball-of-feathers incident and emerges from the womb in time to save his mother from harm.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Coatlicue", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki