“Several other ceremonies were conducted during this festival and there were frequent scenes of debauchery.”
NATURE AND STATUS
The interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis states that Yxcuina, as he names the goddess, was the protector of adulterers and “the goddess of salt and of dissolute persons.” He further relates that they put adulterers to death before her image. The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A adds that she was the wife of Mictlantecutli, lord of the realm of the dead. One of the women given as consorts to the victim sacrificed at the principal feast of Tezcatlipocâ was called after the goddess.
The salt-supply was regarded as an indispensable alimentary feature in Mexico, and the relative importance of the worship of Uixtociuatl can readily be gathered from this circumstance. Her connection with lustfulness had probably a physiological basis, and perhaps owed its existence to the saline odour which emanates from the excretions of the privy parts. There is a distinct resemblance between her name and that of the absinthe plant.
ATLAUA = “LORD OF THE LAKE BEACHES”
- Area of Worship: Chinampanecs of Cuitlauac.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
The lower parts of his extremities are striped blue, like those of Uitzilopochtli. In the Sahagun MS. (Palacio) he wears the domino mask edged round with small white circles (the “stellar face-painting”) and the mouth and chin are blackened or reddened. The headdress resembles the flag used as Uitzilopochtli’s symbol for the panquetzaliztli festival. [[264]]He carries the shield of Uitzilopochtli, with the five balls of eagle’s down, one half of the weapon being coloured red, like blood, and in his right hand he holds an instrument which, from comparison with another Sahagun MS. (Bib. Laurenz.) we know to be a rattle. In this picture symbols expressive of singing flow from his mouth.