CHICOMECOATL = “SEVEN SNAKE”

Chicomecoatl. (From the Sahagun MS.) Figure of Chicomecoatl. (Uhde Collection, Berlin.)

Chicomecoatl. (From the Sahagun MS., Laurenziana).

FORMS OF CHICOMECOATL.

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: [[171]]

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.

CINTEOTL, SON OF CHICOMECOATL.

(Codex Bologna, sheet 13.)

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[13] and Torquemada.[14] 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 [[172]]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 [[173]]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, [[174]]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.

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