CHALCHIHUITLICUE = “SHE OF THE JEWELLED ROBE”

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

General.—In Codex Borgia (sheet 14) she is depicted wearing a blue, stepped nose-ornament and a serpent helmet-mask. In the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer is seen a jaguar’s ear behind the serpent’s eye in more than one representation of her helmet-mask. In Codex Borgia she wears a large golden disk (teocuitla-comalli) suspended by a jewelled band. Her robe has a broad hem, in which the colours of the hieroglyph chalchihuitl, green and red, with a white fringe, are reproduced, thus forming a kind of pictograph of her name. The same purpose is served by a large blue disk in the middle of the skirt.[31] In Codex Vaticanus B she holds the bone-dagger and agave spike for ceremonial blood-letting. She stands on foaming water, on which floats a burnt-offering of firewood and rubber.

In the Aubin tonalamatl she is pictured as standing in a stream, down which swirl away a jewel-box, an armed man, and a woman.

Variations.—The representations of Chalchihuitlicue in the Codex Borgia group, where she is dressed in the snake-helmet, [[258]]are substantially different from her appearance in the Aubin tonalamatl, the Codex Borbonicus, and elsewhere.

In the Codex Borbonicus (sheet 5) the insignia of the goddess is heavily spotted, the significance being by no means plain.[32] The representation in the Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio) also differs, and in this the goddess is seen holding a rattle and wearing what seems to be an interesting variant of the jewel hieroglyph.

CHALCHIHUITLICUE.

Stone figure from the Christy Collection.

In Codex Borgia (sheet 57) she is represented along with her spouse Tlaloc, the chalchihuitl jewel in the form of a two-handed pitcher separating them. The gods hold chains of jewels representing the four kinds of maize—yellow, blue, red, and green—and a naked human being issues from the pitcher, symbolizing the growth of the maize.[33]

Other interesting variations in connection with this goddess are those found in Codex Vaticanus B and Codex Borgia (sheet 17), in both of which she is seen suckling a human being. In the former she wears on the head two bunches of quetzal-feathers, usually part of the insignia of Xochiquetzal, and she is only to be recognized by the symbol beside her, a variant of the element chalchihuitl.

Sahagun describes her as follows in the Biblioteca del Palacio MS.: “The face is yellow, with a red pattern superimposed. She wears a collar of green precious stones, and a crown of paper adorned with a quetzal-feather. The tunic and skirt are painted with water lines, and she wears shells. Her sandals represent the foam of water. On her shield is painted the emblem of a water flower, and she carries the “mist rattle-staff.” Statuettes of Chalchihuitlicue are fairly common. One found in the Valley of Mexico agrees to some [[259]]extent with her appearance in the Aubin tonalamatl, but not with that in Codex Borgia. She wears the tasselled shawl and the chalchihuitl emblem adorns her dress. Two other stone figures of her in the Uhde collection at Berlin and one in the Christy collection at London are eloquent of her insignia. In all of these she wears the tasselled shawl, and in the Christy example and one of the Uhde figures the large back-bow is well exemplified, as are the two plaits of hair descending at the back. In the other Uhde specimen the plates are shown as part of a knot of the cotton headdress, which is in all cases fringed with balls. In all three figures large, full bands of some material descend over the ear. A stone figure of her, found at the Castillo de Teayo in Vera Cruz and now in the National Museum at Mexico, depicts her with a square headdress, from which radiate what are evidently the feathers of aquatic birds. She wears the V-shaped shawl or tippet and a skirt, on each side of which the chalchihuitl emblem is shown and which is fringed with shells. Teobert Maler reproduces another stone figure of her wearing a high headdress of feathers and a necklace and wristlets of chalchihuitls.

CHALCHIHUITLICUE PIERCED BY TLAUIZCALPANTECUTLI.

(From Codex Bologna, sheet 9.)

MYTHS

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis states that “Chalchiuhtli, who presided over these thirteen days, saved herself in the deluge. She is a woman who remained after the deluge. Her name signifies the ‘Woman who wears a dress adorned with precious stones.’ They here fasted four days till death. They paint her holding in one hand a spinning-wheel, and in the other a wooden instrument, with which they weave; and in order to show that of the sons which women bring forth some are slaves and others die in war, and others in poverty, they paint her with a stream as if carrying them away, so that whether rich or poor all were finally doomed.” The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says that she is the same as the virgin Chimalman, who was the mother of Quetzalcoatl. The myth to which this passage alludes is dealt with in the section relating to [[260]]Quetzalcoatl. Sahagun (bk. i, c. ii) calls the goddess the sister of the Tlaloquê.

FESTIVALS

Chalchihuitlicue was adored at the etzalqualiztli festival to the Tlaloquê (see Tlaloc) and at the feast ce atl (“one week”), when, says Sahagun, “her festival was celebrated by all who in any way dealt in water, or had any connection with it, water-sellers, fishers and the like. These dressed and ornamented her image and made adorations in the house named calpulli. The great lords and rich merchants at the birth of one of their children paid the greatest attention to this sign, and the day and hour at which the child was born. They at once inquired of the astrologers what fortune the child might expect to encounter, and if the sign was propitious, they had the infant baptized without delay, whereas if it were the opposite they waited until the nearest day which had a propitious sign. Food and drink were distributed freely to all.”

CHALCHIHUITLICUE.

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 17.)

CHALCHIHUITLICUE. (From the Sahagun MS.) UIXTOCIUATL. (From the Sahagun MS.)

PRIESTHOOD

Veytia[34] states that King Nauhyotl instituted a college of priests expressly for the service of this goddess. These were celibate and wore long and ample robes of a sombre colour. They went bare-footed in the sanctuary, fasted frequently, and were given to penitence and contemplation. Their high-priest was called Achcauhtli,[35] and the entire cult was modelled on that of Quetzalcoatl. This did not prohibit them, however, from the sacrifice of human beings.

NATURE AND STATUS

Chalchihuitlicue was the female counterpart of Tlaloc, and the goddess of water and moisture. Sahagun (bk. i, c. ii) says of her: “She was supposed to have her existence in the sea, the rivers and lakes, and had power to take the lives of those who ventured upon them, and to raise tempests.” [[261]]

The name means “She whose raiment consists of green gems,” or “She of the jewelled robe,” and is allegorical of the brilliant surface of flowing rather than stagnant water. She is, says Seler, “an appropriate representative of the sign ‘Snake.’ For the moving, flowing water has everywhere and at all times been likened to the serpent. In cultural centres which are dedicated to the Water-goddess—the Pilon de Azucar, for instance, which has been explored by Hermann Strebel—the ground swarms as well with images of snakes as of frogs.”[36]

In Codex Borgia she is seen with a bunch of dried herbs above her, evidently indicating that she had a medicinal side to her character. Certain pictures of her—that, for instance, in the Aubin tonalamatl already described—seem to point to her as the goddess of change in human affairs, of speedy ruin, and this conception was, no doubt, brought about by the ever-changing character of the element she symbolized. She is, indeed, the goddess of water in its mutable and kaleidoscopic form.

There is, however, every reason to believe that she had a still more profound significance in Mexican theology, and this is made clear if we examine the prayer to her preserved by Sahagun in which she seems to represent the purifying and cleansing influence of water as an agency to wipe away the original sin with which it was thought man came into the world.

That the goddess had also a lunar significance is plain from the allusion to her as the mother of the Centzon Mimixcoa, or stars of the Northern Hemisphere, and the great importance attached to the prayers offered up to her in connection with child-bearing. As has been hinted, she had also a medicinal aspect. The child sacrificed to her at the etzalqualiztli festival was slain at the hill known as Yauhqueme (“covered with mugwort”), and, as instanced in the case of Tlaloc, this plant is the especial medicine-herb of the Greek Artemis. In Codex Borgia, indeed, she is associated with a herb which may possibly be the mugwort or wormwood, and [[262]]Seler thinks she is to be regarded as the giver of “healing draughts of physic.”

Atlaua. (See p. 263.) Napatecutli. (See p. 264.) Opochtli. (See p. 266.)

FORMS OF THE TLALOQUÊ.

(From the Sahagun MS.)

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