MAYAUEL = “SHE OF THE MAGUEY-PLANT”
- Minor Names:
- Ce Quauhtli = “One Eagle.”
- Cipactonal = “Cipactli Sun.”
- Calendar Place: Ruler of the eighth day, tochtli; of the eighth week, ce malinalli.
- Symbols: The agave-plant; the octli jug or vase.
- Compass Direction: The lower region, or south.
- Relationship: One of the octli-gods and the Tzitzimimê; wife of Patecatl.
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ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 12: She is painted yellow, the women’s colour, and is seen issuing from an agave-plant. In sheet 16 she has the general aspect of Tlazolteotl, and her hair is bound up with a band of unspun cotton, a plug of which also hangs from her ear. About the mouth she is painted with black rubber, and as a nasal ornament wears the golden crescent. Her face is white, and her tippet and skirt are painted in the semblance of water and both garments have a fringe of snail-shells. She suckles a fish. Sheet 68: In this place she is represented as ruler of the eighth week. She has a two-coloured face-painting, the upper half yellow, and the lower green or blue. The octli colour is represented in her garments, which are white. In the pictures of the Borgia group generally she is shown wearing the blue indented nose-plate which is assigned to Xochiquetzal. In Codex Borgia generally she wears as a back-device a quemitl after the style of Tlaloc, but coloured white and blue or green. On her flame-coloured locks she sometimes wears a jewelled chain with a conventional bird’s head decorating the front of it, while the feather-tuft on her head resembles that worn by the Sun-god in Codex Borgia (sheet 15), and is intended to symbolize the fiery nature of the octli liquor.
Aubin Tonalamatl.—Sheet 8: She is painted the colour of the Maize-goddess and her maidens—red. As a headdress she wears a bandage with a neck-loop formed and coloured like that of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue, and connected with a high crown. She bears a copal incense bag.
Codex Vaticanus A.—She is shown with the upper half of her face yellow and the lower blue, thus depicting the typical two-coloured face-painting of the octli-gods. On her head she wears the characteristic octli-god’s headdress, also worn by Tlaloc, and holds a drinking-vessel brimming with octli.
Codex Borbonicus.—Her face is blue with a few oblique lines after the style of the warrior’s face-paint. She wears as a headdress a bandage of unspun cotton (usually the characteristic of Tlazolteotl), spindles in her hair, a quail’s wing and long plumes of a yellow colour. In her hand she [[296]]bears a bunch of octli-wort, a root which, if added to the agave liquor, makes its powers of intoxication more potent.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheets 31 and 89: She is represented wearing the headdress typical of Tlaloc and of the octli-gods—a bandage coloured white and blue, with knots to the right and left, which leaves these tips or tippets sticking out. Two large white and blue rosettes with similarly coloured tassels depend by strings from the right and left of this bandage.