Cihuacoatl

Cihuacoatl connects the two things the Mexica considered equivalent. A woman who died in childbirth was a warrior dead in battle — she had taken a captive, the child — and went to the same afterlife as a soldier, escorting the sun down from noon. Cihuacoatl is the goddess of that, and she is warlike accordingly. The state's second officer, effectively its prime minister, carried her name as his title; Tlacaelel held it for fifty years. She is also heard, in the Florentine Codex's list of omens before the conquest, walking the streets at night crying for her son.

Domains

• childbirth
• war

Sources

• Cihuacoatl is a Mexica mother and war goddess, patron of midwives and of women who die in childbirth, and the name of the second-highest office of the Mexica state.: Reference treatments of Cihuacoatl, her childbirth and war associations, and the office named for her. (secondary)