It would appear from the data at our disposal that Cinteotl was originally a maize-god of the Totonacs, a people allied in race to the Maya-speaking Huaxtecs of the east coast. It will be recalled that his mother, Tlazolteotl, was of Huaxtec origin. Cinteotl may originally have been regarded by the Maya-speaking coast people as her son, or again the relationship between them may have been symbolic and relatively late in its development. But the myth appears as ancient and well founded, and the corn-mother who has a son or daughter is noticeable in many mythologies.
Although Cinteotl is alluded to as a goddess by Clavigero and other writers, it is abundantly clear that his godhead is of the male order, as the pictures which represent him prove. Seler lays stress upon his absolute identification with Xochipilli and Macuilxochitl, but although resemblances certainly exist, it seems to me that there are as many points of difference between these gods and that the likeness was the outcome of later development. Thus it can be shown by Seler’s own conclusions that, whereas Xochipilli was the patron of gaming and sport and light-hearted amusement, Cinteotl, on the other hand, was symbolic of that death which is the offspring of sin.[20] [[179]]
Cinteotl’s mother, Tlazolteotl, the goddess of lust, undoubtedly typifies sin, and her son symbolizes the death which follows it and is its wages, the sharp knife of sacrifice. The indented cap he wears is typical of this implement, and was known as itzlacoliuhqui (“frost”), an expression which is also translated as “death” and which is occasionally employed of Tezcatlipocâ in his phase of god of justice.
But Cinteotl had another connection with the plutonic, such as is possessed by many grain-gods, and must, like Hades and Ishtar, be regarded as a deity of the Underworld, the place of the dead, the realm in which the seed germinates ere it sprouts above ground. He was the tutelary deity of the goldsmiths of Xochimilco, oddly enough, it seems to us, until we recall the resemblance between the ripe maize-cob and the work of the native jewellers.[21]
It is, however, as the young maize-god—the maize in its tender and half-ripened condition—that he must be chiefly regarded, and that he was looked upon by the ancient Mexicans. He strongly resembles the Maya god E.
CIUACOATL = “SERPENT WOMAN”
- Area of Worship: Colhuacan and Xochimilco.
- Minor Names:
- Quilaztli = “Obsidian Plant” (?).
- Quauhciuatl = “Woman-eagle.”
- Yaociuatl = “Woman-warrior.”
- Tonantzin = “Our Mother.”
- Relationship: Mother of Mixcoatl; sister of the Centzon Mimixcoa.
- Symbol: Obsidian knife.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
General.—In Codex Borgia (sheet 60) she appears as one of the two heads, or faces, of Quaxolotl, a female face framed by long, streaming hair, with the fleshless under-jaw and the exposed teeth of a dead person’s skull.