Sahagun MS.—The face of the goddess is painted with white infusorial earth of the kind known as tiçitl. She wears a crown of eagle-feathers and a white overdress. Her skirt is formed of serpents, as her name implies. On her feet she wears white sandals and shells. Her shield is inset with eagle-feathers, and she bears a serpent-staff in her hand.
STATUES
Much argument has circled around the colossal statue of Coatlicue (see Introduction) which formerly adorned one of the entrances to the great temple of Mexico, and which was evidently supported by upright stones, so that it formed the key-stone of a gateway where it could be seen by all who passed in and out of the temple. It has been assigned to more than one goddess, and when it was disinterred amongst [[184]]other relics in the course of making new drains in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico in August 1790, it was placed in the court of the university and there worshipped by the Indians, who decked it with flowers. The Mexican antiquaries, relying on a statement by Boturini[29] in which he states that Uitzilopochtli was accompanied by the goddess “Teoyaomiqui,” regarded the two-faced idol as being bi-sexual and as a composite figure of both gods, and this notion was perpetuated by Gama in his Dos Piedras. Payne, in his History of the New World, appends a long and very “sane” note to his description of it, sneers at the conclusions of the Mexican antiquaries, and states, somewhat dogmatically, that it must be regarded as a representation of Chicomecoatl. But it is undoubtedly Coatlicue. In the first place that goddess had a right to a position in the temple of Uitzilopochtli as his mother, secondly the idol wears the skirt of serpents which is implied in her name. But this notwithstanding, the stone figure has obviously a symbolical meaning as illustrating the whole circumstances of human sacrifice. The head is formed by the junction of the heads of two serpents, which symbolize the two streams of blood welling out from a decapitated body. The flayed skin of the victim is hung in front and is shown knotted behind as in the statue of Xipe found at the Castillo de Teayo. The cups from which octli was drunk are stuck in front of the flayed human skin, and a skull adorns the serpent-skirt before and behind. Through all these attributes, however, the personality of the serpent-woman goddess can be sensed as much as observed.[30]
Other statues and paintings of Coatlicue uphold the theory that she is represented by this idol. One found in the Calle de las Escalerillas, and others recovered from the Calle de Coliseo in Mexico City, show her as having the face of a skull. In the latter she wears a peculiar flat headdress with maize-like motifs depending from the back, and her hair recalls the ruffled “night-hair” of Mictlantecutli. Around her body are strange step-motifs which constitute the ends of parallel lines; and from her ears depend large cotton plugs. [[185]]She wears a girdle of skulls with serpentine noses. Another relief of her found in the Calle de las Escalerillas is, however, much more enlightening than the foregoing. In this spirited work she wears what is evidently a panache of stone knives or malinalli grass, the face is that of a skull, she has the claws of a jaguar, and the skirt of entwined serpents is noticeable. Be all this as it may, however, the insignia of the goddess is by no means a fixed quantity, and considerable research is necessary before anything like certainty can be arrived at.
MYTH
Sahagun (bk. iii, c. i) related of this goddess that near the ancient city of Tulla or Tulan rose the mountain of Coatepec (“Serpent Mountain”), where lived a woman named Coatlicue, mother of certain “Indians” called Cenzonuitznaua. She had a daughter called Coyolxauhqui. Coatlicue, who was a widow and very devout, climbed each day to the mountain of Coatepec to do penance, and on one occasion, as she reached its summit, a little ball of feathers resembling a roll of thread or twine fell upon her. Picking it up, she placed it in her bosom, and later was unable to find it. Shortly afterwards she became enceinte. Her children, observing her condition, were indignant, and Coyolxauhqui advised her brothers to slay their mother for the shame she had put upon them. Her unborn infant whispered to her to be of good cheer. But one day her sons armed themselves and prepared to slay her. One of them, however, called Quauitlicac, whispered to the supernatural child that treason was toward, and at the moment when, headed by Coyolxauhqui, Coatlicue’s children came to dispatch her, Uitzilopochtli was born, fully armed. Falling upon his brothers and sister with his terrible weapon, the xiuhcoatl, or fiery serpent, he speedily dispatched them all.[31]
FESTIVAL
Tlacaxipeuliztli.—Sahagun (bk. ii, c. 22) relates that on the second day of this month the people of the temple quarter [[186]]of Coatlan offered flowers in the temple and made music during the entire day in honour of Coatlicue. These flowers were the first-fruits of the year, were offered up by the master florists, who had a great devotion to the goddess, and none of the blossoms in their gardens might be smelt until these bouquets had been offered up in the temple of Coatlicue. They made for this feast tamallis called tzatzapaltamalli (“sharp-tasting herb cakes”).
NATURE AND STATUS
Coatlicue is, in one of her aspects, undoubtedly the flower-covered earth of spring, from whom, as it were, the sun (Uitzilopochtli) is reborn. Her serpent-skirt is probably symbolic of the circumstance that, at the season which she represents, the earth is clothed with the rain as with a garment. The myth which makes her a pious widow is obviously of late, and probably of hierophantic, origin. In my view Uitzilopochtli is chiefly her son in his naualli or disguise of a humming-bird. The humming-bird sucks from the breasts of earth as a child from its mother’s. But the myth is highly conglomerate, and, as we possess it, is obviously the result of the fusion of several varying conceptions of the two principal figures. Coatlicue’s appearance as a serpent in her great statue which has been described above, and her name of Coatlantonan, “Our Serpent Mother,” in my view tend to identify her with the earth in its form of dragon, serpent, or cipactli, regarding which hypothesis the reader is referred to my remarks in the Introduction.