Aztec mythology; Indian mythology -- Mexico; Mexico -- Religion
Chicomecoatl is obviously the ancient and indigenous maize-goddess of
the Mexican Valley, whose worship had existed from early times. The
statement by the interpreter in Codex Telleriano-Remensis that she
caused famines is most certainly an error and much more applicable to
Ciuacoatl. The identification of her in the same place with
Tonacaciuatl, the female companion of the creative deity, is probably
correct, as she seems to have been an agricultural variant of the old
earth-mother. Chicomecoatl was the patroness of the food supply, who,
says Sahagun, “was the goddess of subsistence,” and “the original maker
of bread and victuals and cookery in general,” and whose sign radiated
good fortune and happy influences. In this goddess, as viewed through
the medium of the observances practised at her festival, we see,
perhaps, the old and indigenous earth-goddess as the helper and
foster-parent of the younger earth-mother, Tlazolteotl, for the grain
of the year before was hers and was placed in the granaries to “help”
or form a nucleus to the new grain. Again, it was perhaps natural that
the elder earth-goddess should preside over the old grain used for
seed, and the younger goddess over the grain which had not yet come to
fruition. In many countries two grain-spirits, mother and daughter,
appear in the agricultural pantheon. In Breton custom the
mother-sheaf—a figure made out of the last sheaf—bears within it a
lesser bundle, which is regarded as the unborn daughter; and in
Prussia, Malaysia, Scotland, and Greece, this double personification of
the corn was or is in vogue.
CINTEOTL = “MAIZE-GOD”
Territory: Totonac; Aztec; Xochimilco.
Minor Names:
Ce Xochitl = “One Flower” (date).
Chicomoltotzin = “Seven Ears.”
Relationship: Son of Tlazolteotl; husband of Xochiquetzal.
Symbol: The god’s head with maize headdress (as in Bologna
tonalamatl).
Festivals: Uei tozoztli; ochpaniztli.
Compass Directions: North; West.
Calendar Place:
Fourth of the Nine Lords of the Night.
Seventh of the Thirteen Lords of the Day.
(Codex Borbonicus, sheet 20.)
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 52: In this place Cinteotl is figured as a male
deity of yellow colour and with a peculiar black, angular, longitudinal
band on the face and bearing a load of maize-ears on his back. In one
hand he carries the rain-staff and in the other the throwing-stick.
Sheet 14: In this illustration he is clearly recognized as the
Maize-god by the maize-ears and the maize-blooms which he wears in his
fillet or on his head. In other respects his insignia resembles that of
the Sun-god in its flame-coloured hair, the jewelled head-strap with
the conventional bird’s head on the frontal side, the large gold disk
on his breast, and on the nape of the neck the rosette painted in the
colours of the green jewel chalchihuitl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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