Coatlicue

Coatlicue, kent as Teteoinan an aw (transcribit Teteo Inan an aw), "The Mither o Gods" (Clessical Nahuatl: Cōhuātlīcue [koːwaːˈt͡ɬiːkʷe], Tēteô īnnān), is the Aztec goddess who gave birth tae the muin, starns, an Huitzilopochtli, the god o the sun an war. She is kent as Toci (Tocî, "oor grandmither") an Cihuacoatl (Cihuācōhuātl an aw, "the lady o the serpent"), the patron o weemen who dee in shootin.

The wird Coatlicue is Nahuatl for "the ane wi the skirt o serpents". The wird for serpent is coātl. "Mither Goddess o the Yird who gives birth tae aw celestial things", "Goddess o Fire an Growthiness", "Goddess o Life, Daith an Rebirth", an "Mither o the Soothren Starns."

She is representit as a wumman wearin a skirt o writhin snakes an a necklace made o human herts, haunds, an skulls. Her feet an haunds are adorned wi claws an her breists are depictit as hangin flaccid frae pregnancy. Her face is formit bi twa facin serpents (efter her heid wis cut aff an the bluid spurt fort frae her neck in the form o twa gigantic serpents),^[1] referrin tae the meeth that she wis sacrificit durin the beginnin o the present creation.

Maist Aztec artistic representations o this goddess emphasise her deadly side, acause Yird, as well as luvin mither, is the insatiable monster that consumes iverything that lives. She represents the devourin mither; in her baith the womb an the grave exist.

Accordin tae Aztec legend, she wis ance magically impregnatit bi a baw o feathers that fell on her while she wis sweepin a temple, an subsequently gied birth tae the gods Quetzalcoatl an Xolotl. Her dochter Coyolxauhqui then rallied Coatlicue's fower hunder ither childer thegither an goadit thaim intae attackin an decapitatin their mither. The instant she wis killt, the god Huitzilopochtli suddenly emergit frae her womb fully grown an airmit for battle. He killt mony o his brithers an sisters, includin Coyolxauhqui, whase heid he cut aff an threw intae the sky tae become the muin. In ane variation on this legend, Huitzilopochtli hissel is the bairn conceivit in the baw-o-feathers incident an is born juist in time tae save his mither frae hairm.

• Vistas Project at Smith College. Edited bi Dana Leibsohn and Barbara Mundy.
• Boone, Elizabeth H. "The Coatlicues at the Templo Mayor." Ancient Mesoamerica (1999), 10: 189-206 Cambridge Varsity Press.
• Carbonell, Ana Maria. "From Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros." MELUS 24(2) Summer 1999:53-74
• Cisneros, Sandra. "It occurs to me I am the creative/destructive goddess Coatlicue." The Massachusetts Review 36(4):599. Winter 1995.
• Klein, Cecelia F. "A New Interpretation of the Aztec Statue Called Coatlicue, 'Snakes Her Skirt,'" Ethnohistory 55(2):229-250. 2008
• De Leon, Ann. "Coatlicue or How to Write the Dismembered Body." MLN Hispanic Notes Volume 125, Number 2: 259-286 March 2010.
• Dorsfuhrer, C. "Quetzalcoatl and Coatlicue in Mexican Mythology." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos (449):6–28 November 1987.
• Fernández, Justino. Coatlicue. Estética del arte indígena antiguo. Centro de Estudios Filosoficos, U.N.A.M., Mexico, 1954.
• Franco, Jean. "The Return of Coatlicue: Mexican Nationalism and the Aztec Past." Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 13(2) August 2004: 205 - 219.
• Granziera, Patrizia. "From Coatlicue to Guadalupe: The Image of the Great Mother in Mexico." Studies in World Christianity 10(2):250-273. 2005.
• León y Gama, Antonio de. Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras: que con ocasión del empedrado que se está formando en la plaza Principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790. Impr. de F. de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1792; reprint Nabu Press (2011; Spanish), ISBN 1-173-35713-0. An expanded edition, wi descriptions of additional sculptures (like the Stane o Tizoc), edited bi Carlos Maria Bustamante, published in 1832. Thare hae been a couple o facsimile editions, published in the 1980s and 1990s. Library of Congress digital edition of Leon y Gama's 1792 wirk on the Calendar Stone [1]
• Pimentel, Luz A. "Ekphrasis and Cultural Discourse: Coatlicue in Descriptive and Analytic Texts (Representations of the Aztec earth mither goddess). NEOHELICON 30(1):61-75. 2003.

Media relatit tae Coatlicue at Wikimedia Commons