QUAXOLOTL = “SPLIT AT THE TOP” (FLAME)
- Relationship: A variant of Chantico.
- Festival: Ce xochitl, “one flower.”
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
She is so called because she wears Xolotl’s decoration on her head. The double face of Xochiquetzal in Codex Borgia (sheet 60) is regarded by Seler as that of Quaxolotl—[[284]]the goddess parting into two heads. She is also the goddess who has borne twins.
NATURE AND STATUS
Quaxolotl is a variant of Chantico. The name, which signifies “split at the top,” seems to signify the kind of flame which bifurcates or splits into two tongues. She is thus connected with things double, and is the goddess who has borne twins. Sahagun, who calls her Quaxolotl-Chantico,[19] thereby identifies her with that goddess, and states that she was housed in the twenty-ninth temple in the great court at Mexico, the Tetlanman, which he distinguishes from that of Chantico proper, the Tetlanman Calmecac, the twenty-seventh. He states that slaves were sacrificed here on the sign ce xochitl, “one flower,” and perhaps this fixes the date of the festival of the goddess. [[285]]
[10] See Sahagun, bk. ii, Appendix. [↑]
[11] Seler, Commentary on Tonalamatl of the Aubin Goupil Collection, p. 73. [↑]
[12] Commentary on the Tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection, p. 71. [↑]
[13] See also T. L. Preuss, Die Feuergötter als Ausgangspunkt zum Verständnis der Mexikanischen Religion (“Mittheilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft in Wien,” vol. xxxiii, Vienna, 1903, pp. 129–233). [↑]
[15] “Wizard-prince,” evidently a patron of sorcerers and cunning workmanship. [↑]
[18] Sahagun states that the dog is the symbol of fire (bk. iv, c. xxii). [↑]