Coatlique

*She of the Serpent Skirt; Mother of the Heavens*

**Also known as:**Tonantzin

**Origin:** Mexico

The goddess Coatlique (Ciuacoatl, Civocoatl, Cihuacoatl, Coatlantona, Conteotl) (the serpent lady, robe of serpent) In Aztec mythology, mother of the Sun as well as his wife and sister, mother of the moon and stars, was keeper of the sacred shrine at Coatepec (Snake Mountain). Coatlicue appearing in numerous forms throughout Aztec mythology as both beneficent and Demonic. She was also the mother of Quetzalcoatl.

One day while sweeping, a ball of down feathers fell from the sky. She tucked it into her bosom. By the time she had finished sweeping, the feathers had mysteriously disappeared—and Coatlique knew she was pregnant. It was not a virgin birth per se, but no sex was involved and technically there was no father.

Her daughter, moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, enraged to discover this pregnancy, plots with her four hundred star brothers to kill Coatlique and thus terminate the pregnancy, rather than submit to the forthcoming Huitzilopochtli, Lord of War, gestating in their mother’s womb. Coatlique was not unaware of the threat, but the child within her womb comforted her, advising her not to worry. When Coyolxauhqui and her four hundred brothers attacked, slicing off Coatlique’s head, the divine child, Huitzilopochtli, leaped out, fully formed, fully armed (similar to the birth of Athena).

According to Fray Bernardino Sahagún in his Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Coatlicue was responsible for giving people “poverty, mental depression, and sorrows.” She would often appear in the marketplace dressed as a lady of rank and leave a cradle in which was found a lance point later used in human sacrifices.

Fray Diego Durán in his *Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de tierra firme* relates that Montezuma II sent representatives to find the origin of his ancestors. They discovered a hill containing seven caves. A priest appeared and introduced them to an old woman, ugly and dirty, whose “face was so black and covered with filth that she looked like something straight out of Hell.”

The woman was Coatlicue. She welcomed the ambassadors and said she was the mother of the god Huitzilopochtli. She had been fasting since the day the god left and not washing or combing her hair, waiting for his return from the Aztec land. As the messengers prepared to leave, she called to them, telling them that in her land no one grew old. She then told them to watch as one of her servants ran down a hill and became younger as he reached the bottom.

The ambassadors watched the man become younger as he descended and old again when he ascended the hill. One of the most prominent manifestations of Coatlicue was as the deity of grain, in which role she would appear in both male and female forms under the name of Centeotl. Centeotl was often portrayed as a frog with numerous breasts, symbolic of the wet earth, according to some commentators.

Her face was painted yellow, the color of corn. During her festivals the priests wore phallic emblems in the hope of inducing Centeotl to provide crops for the coming year. Another important manifestation was as an earth goddess. She appeared with a huge open mouth and ferocious teeth, and was dressed all in white.

Durán says that when the Aztecs won a great victory under the leadership of Montezuma II, Prince Cihuacoatl, who was named after the goddess, “attired himself in the garb of the goddess Cihuacoatl.” These were the female clothes that were called “eagle garments.”

An Aztec statue of Coatlicue in the Mexican Anthropological Museum portrays the cosmic aspects of the goddess as the great mother, who brings life and death. Coatlicue was also known as and identified with Tonantzin (our mother), Ilamatecuhtli (old goddess), Tlatecutli (earth toad swallowing stone knife), Temazalteci (grandmother of the sweat bath), Itzpapalotl (obsidian butterfly), and as goddess of fate, portrayed as a beautiful woman with the symbols of death on her face.

Coatlique is a fierce spirit of fertility. Some consider her the spirit who lies at the root of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

**Manifestations:** Coatlique’s head is a human skull or that of a snake. She may have a double snake head. In Hoodoo parlance, a two-headed woman is a conjurer with the power to see into two worlds, usually the past and future or the realms of the living and the dead. Coatlique is a primal two-headed woman. She wears a necklace of human hands and hearts and a skirt of entwined serpents. Her feet are tipped with talons.

**Iconography:** Surviving depictions of Coatlique are reasonably rare, but several colossal statues have been unearthed. Snakes appear where her head and hands should be, representing blood flowing from her severed neck and wrists.

**Realm:** Coatepec: “Snake Mountain”

**Element:** Earth

**Animal:** Snakes, especially coral snakes

**Number:** 5

**Sacred site:** Tepeyac, site of her great temple, was considered a place of tremendous spiritual power and was a major pilgrimage point before the Spanish Conquest.

**See Also:** Anat; Athena; Baba Yaga; Coyolxauhqui; Guadalupe; Huitzilopochtli; Kali

## Information Source

Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses by Judika Illes

Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow