Tlazolteotl

Aztec earth, fertility and purification goddess of Huastec origin (the Ixcuina/Ixcuinanme complex); patroness of carnal love and of its ritual absolution as the Filth-Eater (Tlaelcuani), honoured at the autumn feast Ochpaniztli. In the codices she is the mother of Centeotl the maize lord — depicted in Codex Borbonicus fol. 13 giving birth to him while wearing flayed skin — a maternity that the sources alternately assign to Xochiquetzal (already the wired primary parent of Centeotl). Authored here to materialize the variant maternal link named in the Centeotl entry. Closely identified with the earth-mother Toci/Teteoinnan; her diagnostic attribute is the unspun-cotton headdress with two spindles.

Children

• Centeotl

Domains

• earth and fertility
• purification and confession
• carnal love and vice

Powers

• Consume human filth and absolve carnal transgression
• Govern childbirth and the fertility of the soil

Epithets

• Tlaēlcuani
• Ixcuina

Relations

• mother of: Centeotl

Sources

• Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Books I, II, VI
• Codex Borbonicus, fol. 12-13
• Sahagún, Florentine Codex (the maize-god parentage)
• Miller & Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (1993), s.v. Tlazolteotl, Centeotl