Cinteotl’s mother, Tlazolteotl, the goddess of lust, undoubtedly typifies sin, and her son symbolizes the death which follows it and is its wages, the sharp knife of sacrifice. The indented cap he wears is typical of this implement, and was known as itzlacoliuhqui (“frost”), an expression which is also translated as “death” and which is occasionally employed of Tezcatlipocâ in his phase of god of justice. But Cinteotl had another connection with the plutonic, such as is possessed by many grain-gods, and must, like Hades and Ishtar, be regarded as a deity of the Underworld, the place of the dead, the realm in which the seed germinates ere it sprouts above ground. He was the tutelary deity of the goldsmiths of Xochimilco, oddly enough, it seems to us, until we recall the resemblance between the ripe maize-cob and the work of the native jewellers. [195] It is, however, as the young maize-god—the maize in its tender and half-ripened condition—that he must be chiefly regarded, and that he was looked upon by the ancient Mexicans. He strongly resembles the Maya god E. CIUACOATL = “SERPENT WOMAN” Area of Worship: Colhuacan and Xochimilco. Minor Names: Quilaztli = “Obsidian Plant” (?). Quauhciuatl = “Woman-eagle.” Yaociuatl = “Woman-warrior.” Tonantzin = “Our Mother.” Relationship: Mother of Mixcoatl; sister of the Centzon Mimixcoa. Symbol: Obsidian knife. ASPECT AND INSIGNIA General.—In Codex Borgia (sheet 60) she appears as one of the two heads, or faces, of Quaxolotl, a female face framed by long, streaming hair, with the fleshless under-jaw and the exposed teeth of a dead person’s skull. The Sahagun MS. describes her as having a face painted half-red, half-black, with a thick smear of indiarubber round the lips. She wears a crown of eagle-feathers and a golden ear-plug. Her overdress is “the colour of spring flowers” (red), and she also has an undergarment with a fringe, and a white enagua, or skirt. Her costume is adorned with shells and she wears sandals. Her shield is inset with eagle’s feathers. An ancient song to her states that she carries a rattle-stick. She has a shield-device similar to that of Chantico, with whom she seems to be a parallel. MYTHS In the “Song of the Earth-goddesses,” Ciuacoatl is alluded to as follows: The eagle Quilaztli is painted with serpent’s blood; Her crown is made of eagle-feathers. The high cypresses of the Chalmecâ land shelter her. The maize has come; On the fields of the gods She leans on the rattle-staff. In my hand rests the agave thorn; On the fields of the gods She leans on her rattle-staff. The broom is in my hand; On the fields of the gods She leans on the rattle-staff. Thirteen eagles is our mother, goddess of the Chalmecâ; The spear of the prickly plant lays me low; It is my son Mixcoatl.