(4) That the cult of the southern god Xipe, the grain-deity of a related people, had made great headway among the Nahua of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
(5) It follows from these conclusions that only one of these deities of growth—Coatlicue—was of Nahua origin, all the others being gods of the aboriginal or settled peoples. The Chichimec Nahua, a hunting people, possessing no official grain-goddess of their own, would naturally come to worship these on their adoption of an agricultural mode of life. As most of these forms hailed from districts of considerable cultural antiquity, I believe their worship to have been of long duration in the land, not much less ancient, indeed, than the cult of Tlaloc.
It is not claimed for these conclusions that they are more than approximate. The data relative to these deities is much too complex to permit of any more precise or dogmatic treatment, in fact at one time or another there was identification between them all; but with the above attempt at simplification in view we shall now endeavour to present the reader with a detailed account of each of these and other less important divinities who were regarded as in any way connected [[156]]with the personification of the earth or the growth of the crops, their festivals and ritual.
The earth-deities seem to have been prophetic and divinatory and to have been connected with medicine, like similar European and Asiatic goddesses. Some of them, like Itzpapalotl, share the butterfly symbol with the gods of fire, with whom they are frequently connected. They are also closely associated with the deer, a fertility animal, and the eagle, the sun-bird, and their victims were, like those of the sun and war deities, decked with eagle-down.
TLAZOLTEOTL = “GODDESS OF DIRT”
- Territory: Huaxtec, Mixtec, Olmec.
- Minor Names:
- Tlaelquani = “Filth-eater.”
- Chicunaui acatl = “Nine Reed.”
- Teteo Innan = “Mother of the Gods.”
- Chiquacen acatl = “Six Reed.”
- Toci = “Our Grandmother.”
- Naui tecpatl = “Four Flint Knife.”
- Cocauic Xochitla = “Yellow Bloom.”
- Tlalli iyallo = “Heart of the Earth.”
- Iztac Xochitla = “White Bloom.”
- Ixcuine = “Four Faces.”
- Tonana Teumechaue = “Our mother, the goddess of the thigh-skin face-painting.”
- Calendar Places: Ruler of the fourteenth day, ocelotl, of the thirteenth week, ce olin. Seventh of the nine lords of the night.
- Compass Direction: West.
- Festivals: Ochpaniztli (“Feast of Brooms”) in the eleventh month.
- Symbols: A man eating excrement (“Dirt-eater”); a broom.
- Relationships: Mother of Centeotl; one of the Tzitzimimê.
| Broom of Tlazolteotl, the symbol of her festival. | Headdress of Tlazolteotl. |
(From Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 17 Verso.)