Coatlicue

Who Coatlicue actually is

Coatlicue (Nahuatl Coātlicue, "Serpent-Skirt" — from *coātl* "serpent" + *cue* "skirt") is the *earth-mother* of the Mexica pantheon — the *cosmic-feminine of the devouring-and-giving-earth*, the *mother-of-Huitzilopochtli*, the *mother-of-the-400-Centzon-Huitznahua-stars*, and the *mother-of-the-dismembered-moon-goddess-Coyolxauhqui*. Her foundational narrative — preserved in Diego Durán's *Historia* — takes place on *Coatepec* ("Serpent-Mountain," identified with a sacred-hill north of modern Tula): Coatlicue, already the mother of the 400-stars and of Coyolxauhqui, is sweeping the temple on Coatepec when *a ball of feathers descends from the sky and lodges in her bosom*. From this *immaculate conception* she becomes pregnant with Huitzilopochtli. Her existing children — Coyolxauhqui and the 400-stars — are *enraged at the dishonor* (Coyolxauhqui calling the unexpected-pregnancy a *shame on the family*) and decide to *kill their mother*. They march on Coatepec armed for war, with Coyolxauhqui at their head. Coatlicue's servant Cuauitlicac (the "tree-on-the-ground") warns her of the approaching attack. Just as Coyolxauhqui reaches the summit and is about to strike her mother, *Huitzilopochtli emerges from Coatlicue's womb fully-grown and fully-armed* (the *cosmic-warrior-born-armed*, a narrative parallel to the Greek Athena-from-Zeus's-head). He immediately *seizes Coyolxauhqui, decapitates her, and dismembers her body, throwing her down the slope of Coatepec where her limbs come to rest separately*. He then *pursues the 400-Centzon-Huitznahua* and kills them. *Coyolxauhqui's dismembered body becomes the moon* (the canonical Mexica lunar narrative); *the 400-Centzon-Huitznahua become the stars of the southern sky* (the Milky Way and the southern constellations). This *cosmogonic narrative* is *re-enacted daily* in the Mexica cosmology: every dawn, Huitzilopochtli (the *new-rising sun*) defeats Coyolxauhqui (the *setting moon*) and the 400-stars (the *fading stars*), driving them from the sky. This is the *cosmic-meaning of every sunrise* — Huitzilopochtli's perpetual-cosmic-victory-over-his-dismembered-sister. The Coatlicue-narrative was *architecturally re-staged* at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlán: the great pyramid *was* Coatepec, the temple-stairs were the slope down which Coyolxauhqui's body tumbled, and at the base of the south-side stairs (Huitzilopochtli's side) was the *Coyolxauhqui Stone* — a 3.4-meter circular relief carved with the dismembered moon-goddess, *discovered in 1978* during the construction of a subway line, the discovery that *initiated the modern Templo Mayor excavations*. Sacrificial victims (often warriors captured in flower-wars) were brought to the summit of the Huitzilopochtli temple, sacrificed by heart-extraction, and *their bodies thrown down the stairs* to land on the Coyolxauhqui Stone — *re-enacting Coyolxauhqui's dismemberment* and *renewing the cosmic-victory of Huitzilopochtli*. The Coatlicue-register is the *cosmic-feminine of the devouring-and-giving-earth* — she gives birth to the cosmic-warrior who then-dismembers-her-other-children-into-the-stars-and-the-moon, and her own iconography (the *Coatlicue Monolith*) shows her *wearing the dismembered-body-parts of the cosmic-victims* (necklace of human-hearts-and-severed-hands, skirt of writhing-snakes, head-replaced-by-two-facing-serpent-streams-of-blood) — *she IS the cosmic-devourer who is also the cosmic-mother*, and her terrifying-aspect is the *honest-iconography of the earth-itself* (which receives every corpse and produces every new-life from the decomposed-bodies of every previous life). The Coatlicue-Monolith is the *most-honest-religious-sculpture in world art history* — it depicts *the cosmic-mother as she actually is*, without softening, and the *fact that 18th-century antiquarians twice-buried it as too-disturbing-to-display* is the canonical testimony to its *theological-honesty*.

Iconography

The Coatlicue Monolith (the 2.5-meter andesite statue at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City) is the canonical iconography. Its features: a *skirt of writhing snakes* (the *coatlicue* itself — the serpent-skirt-as-clothing), a *belt of a coiled serpent* (the *cosmic-snake-belt*), a *necklace of severed-human-hands-and-extracted-human-hearts with a skull-pendant* (the *cosmic-victim-jewelry*), *clawed feet and clawed hands* (the *devouring-earth-talons*), and *no head — replaced by two facing serpent-streams of blood* (the *decapitated-cosmic-mother*, depicted with *two snake-heads facing each other where her head would be*, the iconography being that *her head was struck off in cosmic-violence and from the spilled-blood emerged two great serpents*). The sculpture is *deliberately frontal-and-symmetrical-and-massive*, the *cosmic-mother as architectural-fact*. Color: the original statue may have been polychrome (traces of red and ochre pigment visible), but the canonical-modern-presentation is the natural-andesite-grey. Her sacred animal: the serpent (multiple snakes, the *coatlicue* family — the rattlesnake, the coral-snake, the lance-head viper). Her sacred direction: the *center-and-the-below* (the earth-itself, all four directions converging at the ground-beneath-the-feet). Her sacred color: green-and-red-and-black (the earth-and-blood-and-night palette). Her sacred temple: the *Great Temple of the Templo Mayor itself* (the pyramid-as-Coatepec, the architecture-as-her-cosmic-mountain).

How to invoke Coatlicue

Coatlicue is the *invocation-of-the-devouring-and-giving-earth* — called by *mothers in late-pregnancy* (the *cosmic-precedent of giving-birth-to-the-warrior-who-will-need-to-defend-the-mother-against-her-own-other-children*), by *anyone in the family-conflict-pattern of children-attacking-the-mother-or-mother-being-attacked-by-her-own-children*, by *grandmothers* (the *Toci-Our-Grandmother* aspect, the cosmic-ancestress-of-the-lineage), by *anyone working with the literal-earth* (farmers, potters, gardeners, gravediggers — the *devouring-and-giving-soil* register), by *anyone facing the cosmic-truth of decomposition-and-rebirth* (the *gardener's-recognition* that *every spring's growth is from last fall's compost*, applied to any life-domain). Offer: *amaranth-and-honey* figures of Coatlicue, the *clay of the earth itself*, copal incense, the *fallen-leaves of autumn* (the *first-decomposition-offering*), the *severed-flower* (the cut-flower as cosmic-victim-of-the-cycle). The canonical invocation is the Nahuatl *"Coatlicue, Tonantzin, Teteoinnan, ic timopiltzin, ma xinechmotlamaca in tlalli, in chichimecayotl" — "Serpent-Skirt, Our-Mother, Mother-of-the-Gods, behold I am your son, please feed me with earth, with ancestral-strength."* Especially called by *anyone in the late-stage-of-mothering* (the cosmic-precedent of *the mother whose own children turn against her* and *the cosmic-warrior who emerges-from-her-womb-fully-armed-to-defend-her*), by *anyone honest-enough to recognize that the cosmic-mother is not a sentimental-figure but is the devouring-and-giving-earth-itself*, by *anyone facing the necessary-decomposition-of-something-in-their-life* (the relationship that must end so that the soil can hold the next planting, the project that must be composted so its nutrients can feed the next project).

In love

Coatlicue in love is the *cosmic-mother-as-relationship-ground* — the partner whose *register is the devouring-and-giving-earth*, who is *both the source and the recipient of every cosmic-cycle of birth-death-rebirth* in the relationship. The Coatlicue-partner is the one who *gives birth to the cosmic-warrior* (the relationship-defending-child-of-the-relationship — the great-shared-project, the great-shared-conviction, the great-shared-purpose) who then *defends the mother against her own other-children* (the previous-relationship-patterns, the family-of-origin demands, the older-loyalties). The shadow is the Coatlicue-partner whose *coyolxauhqui-children-are-attacking* and *whose huitzilopochtli-defender-has-not-yet-been-conceived* — the partner-in-the-period-of-vulnerability between *the ball-of-feathers descending into the bosom* and *the cosmic-warrior emerging fully-armed*, when she-is-most-vulnerable to *the dismemberment her own previous-children are planning*. The other shadow: the Coatlicue-partner whose *huitzilopochtli-defender* has *over-served* and has gone-on-to-pursue-the-400-Centzon-Huitznahua *beyond the original-defensive-need* — the relationship in which *the cosmic-defender has become the cosmic-aggressor*, and *the moon and the 400-stars have all been-driven-from-the-sky* leaving *only the cosmic-warrior-sun and the dismembered-corpses*.

In work

Coatlicue in work is the *cosmic-ground of the institution*. The Coatlicue-figure in an institution is the *founder-mother whose own-previous-projects* (the 400-Centzon-Huitznahua, the Coyolxauhqui-prior-leadership) *will inevitably turn against the new-cosmic-warrior* (the next-great-product, the next-great-conviction) *that emerges from her cosmic-womb*. The shadow is the institution that has *no Coatlicue-figure* — no cosmic-ground-of-mothering, no *acknowledgment that the new-cosmic-warrior must be born from a mother who will be attacked by her own previous-children-and-defended-by-the-newly-born*. The other shadow: the institution in which the *huitzilopochtli-defender* has gone-on-to-pursue-the-400-stars *beyond the original-defensive-need*, and *the moon-and-the-stars-have-all-been-driven-from-the-sky* — the firm in which *the cosmic-defender has become the cosmic-aggressor*, and *only the cosmic-warrior-sun-of-the-new-product remains visible* while *every-previous-contribution-and-every-previous-leader-and-every-previous-direction has been dismembered-on-the-Coyolxauhqui-Stone*. The healing-register is *acknowledging Coatlicue herself* — the *cosmic-mother-of-the-institution* — and *not-letting-the-huitzilopochtli-defender pursue beyond what the mother actually-needs-defending-from*.

The gift

Coatlicue gives the *cosmic-honesty of the devouring-and-giving-earth*. The gift is the *Coatlicue-Monolith vision* — the moment when you see the *cosmic-mother as she actually is* (not the sentimental-greeting-card-mother of Western religious-iconography, but the *snake-skirted, heart-necklaced, decapitated, two-serpent-headed cosmic-fact*) and *the recognition that this is the honest-cosmic-truth* (every-mother is *also the devourer*, every-earth is *also the grave*, every-cosmic-feminine is *also the wearer-of-the-dismembered-body-parts-of-the-cosmic-victims*). The gift is the *Coatepec-pattern* — the recognition that *every cosmic-mother-relationship will produce a cosmic-warrior who must defend the mother against her own previous-children*, and that *this is the cosmic-pattern-of-renewal* (the new must defeat the old, but only as defense of the cosmic-mother-itself). The gift is also the *Toci-Grandmother-tenderness* — the recognition that the *Coatlicue who-wears-the-necklace-of-hearts-and-hands* is *also the cosmic-grandmother whose lap is the resting-place of every weary descendant*, and that the *terrifying-aspect and the tender-aspect are not separate-deities* but *the same cosmic-feminine in different registers*.

The shadow

Coatlicue has been *systematically suppressed* by post-conquest Catholicism — the *Coatlicue Monolith* was *buried twice by 18th-century antiquarians* (in 1790 right after excavation, and in 1804 after a second brief display) because the sculpture was *too-frightening for Catholic-Mexican sensibilities*; it was finally-permanently-exhibited at the Universidad Nacional in 1823 only after Mexican independence-from-Spain made the *recovery-of-Mexica-heritage* politically-acceptable. The further shadow: the *Coatlicue-Tonantzin syncretism* — Coatlicue's aspect-name *Tonantzin* ("Our Mother") was used by the Spanish-Franciscan missionaries as the Nahuatl rendering of *the Virgin Mary*, and the *1531 apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe* at *Tepeyac hill* (which had been a pre-Hispanic Coatlicue-Tonantzin shrine) is the canonical *Coatlicue-becomes-Guadalupe* syncretism. The Virgin of Guadalupe is now the *most-venerated religious image in Mexico* and across Latin America, and *every act of devotion to her is also-and-secretly an act of devotion to Coatlicue-Tonantzin*. This *unusually-deep syncretism* is itself the shadow: Coatlicue *survives* by being *renamed Guadalupe*, but the *cosmic-honesty of the devouring-and-giving-earth* (the snake-skirt, the heart-necklace, the decapitation, the two-serpent-heads-from-the-blood) is *erased* in favor of the *sentimental-protective-mother* iconography of the Virgin. The deepest shadow: the *Coatlicue-Huitzilopochtli-Coyolxauhqui narrative* has been *politically-instrumentalized* by the modern Mexican-national-identity construction — the *eagle-on-the-cactus-with-snake* on the Mexican flag is the *symbol-of-Tenochtitlán's-founding* (the omen that told the Mexica to settle on the island in Lake Texcoco), and the *cosmic-victory-of-Huitzilopochtli-over-his-sister-and-brothers* has been *read as the cosmic-charter for Mexica-imperial-supremacy*, which the *modern Mexican state* has used selectively-and-uncritically to assert *Mexico-City-as-Tenochtitlán-as-cosmic-center*. The further shadow: the *re-discovery of the Coyolxauhqui Stone in 1978* (during the construction of a subway line that necessitated demolishing colonial buildings, revealing the Templo-Mayor ruins underneath) was the *event that initiated the modern Templo Mayor excavations* (1978-present, under Eduardo Matos Moctezuma), and the *displaced-and-dismembered-moon-goddess* has become the *literal-and-symbolic figure of the recovery of suppressed Mexica heritage* — and yet also the *cautionary-figure of cosmic-feminine-dismemberment* whose ongoing-modern-resonance with *femicide in Mexico* (the Ciudad-Juárez murders and the broader epidemic of violence against women in modern Mexico) has made *Coyolxauhqui-as-femicide-victim* a *recurring image in modern Mexican feminist-art*.

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