Coatlicue.
[Plate XLV.]
Monstrous Sculpture representing Coatlicue, the Serpent-Skirted Goddess, who was regarded as the Mother of the Gods.
The famous statue of the Earth Goddess, Coatlicue, “the goddess with the serpent skirt,” is one of the most striking examples of barbaric imagination. The name Teoyamiqui is often given to this uncouth figure, but the identification is faulty. Like the other great sculptures we have just examined, it doubtless occupied an important place in the great ceremonial center of Tenochtitlan, but no ancient reference to it is extant. This goddess is reported to have been the mother of the gods.
Fig. 72. Detail showing the Construction of the Face of Coatlicue from Two Serpent Heads meeting End to End.
The statue may be described as follows: The feet are furnished with claws. The skirt is a writhing mass of braided rattlesnakes. The arms are doubled up and the hands are snake heads on a level with the shoulders. Around the neck and hanging down over the breast is a necklace of alternating hands and hearts with a death’s head pendant. The head of this monstrous woman is the same on front and back and is formed of two serpent heads that meet face to face. The forked tongue and the four downward pointing fangs belong half and half to each of the two profile faces.