Tlazolteotl
Aztec/Mexica · deity · cosmogonic · Recorded classification
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
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 'Eater of Filth' — she who devours human ordure and sin and so purifies the penitent.Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book I (primary)
- Ixcuina Huastec-derived name (Ix Cuinim, cotton deity) of the goddess in her four-fold aspect (the Ixcuinanme).Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book I; H. B. Nicholson, Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico (HMAI vol. 10, 1971) (secondary)
Relations
- mother of: CenteotlBears Centeotl the maize lord in the codical tradition (the flayed-skin birthing scene of Codex Borbonicus); a variant of the maternity also assigned to Xochiquetzal, who is already wired as Centeotl's primary parent.Sahagún, Florentine Codex; Codex Borbonicus, fol. 13 (Tlazolteotl giving birth to Centeotl) (primary)
- interpretatio: Ix Cuinim / Ixcuina, the Huastec cotton-and-fertility goddess from whom the Mexica cult of Tlazolteotl derives · HuastecH. B. Nicholson, Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico (HMAI vol. 10, 1971) (secondary)
Sources
- existence: Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Books I, II, VI (primary); Codex Borbonicus, fol. 12-13 (primary)
- mother-of-Centeotl: Sahagún, Florentine Codex (the maize-god parentage) (primary); Miller & Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (1993), s.v. Tlazolteotl, Centeotl (secondary)