Chalchihuitlicue Goddess

Chalchihuitlicue, the water goddess of the Aztec, was another example of a dual goddess who symbolize the two most important relationship women have with men as mothers and lovers. The qualities she has reflected the deep ambivalence men feel toward women which is profound need with profound fear. Chalchihuitlicue is depicted as a young goddess who was both beautiful and dangerous. Her dual nature comes into place which she both watered the earth and gives it life which promotes fertility and growth but can also flood the earth that can cause death and destruction, showing how changeable and unpredictable she is. The terrible and destroying aspect that she possessed along with her nurturing aspect overlap into a vision of the lover who has

exciting, dangerous, and tempting qualities and here the danger is inherent in the attraction may make her even more compelling as some men are drawn to her symbol, the sea, by its danger as well as its reward. Chalchihuitlicue’s name means “She of the jade skirt” in Nahuatl the common language in the Aztec civilization which she is associated with the jade jewel that indicates her beauty and the color green is associated with water, youth, and life which symbolized the life giving power of water.

The sculpture of Chalchihuitlicue shows her kneeling down which female figurines kneeling are a recurring theme in Mexica sculpture. There is evidence that she is identified as a fertility goddess because most fertility goddesses are portrayed as young females and they wear variety of headdresses. Her hair is arranged in two large tassels on both sides of her head and appears that there is a large ornament that is holding her tassels and headdress in place. The body, face, and head seem to all be proportionate and symmetrical, and she wears a traditional shawl known as a quechquiemitl that is trimmed with tassels over a long skirt, and her eyes seem to probably be made from shells which is common in Mexica sculptures. Unlike the statue, the image of the goddess in the codices is vastly and starkly different which she is painted blue that symbolizes she is the wife of Tlaloc the rain god and she is also depicted wearing a blue nose ornament in a half-moon form with a snake head on each

end. As mentioned before, her unpredictable and changeable nature since she is a young goddess who is as inconsistent as a young human female who is still unsure, appealing, willful, sweet, but deadly which in part she is associated with the symbol of sacrifice as well as the goddess of sexuality. The water as earth may become the grave, the womb of death, and the instrument of death which she was responsible for the first destruction of the world created by the gods. This shows how although Chalchihuitlicue symbolizes water, birth, and sexuality, she is also a goddess of change which she is one of the deities that show how women are both equally important, but dangerous in society if given too much power.
Coyolxauhqui is a woman of discord in Aztec society because she had betrayed her brother Huitzilopochtli who was believed to have been the founder of Tenochtitlan and was credited for the success of the state.

The opposition between the “male” state and the “female” opponent regularly appear in stories associated with the establishment of Aztec authority and is underscored by the frequent interpretation of the Coyolxauhqui myth as a battle between the sun and the moon. She became prominent in the mythological story of the legend of the virgin birth of Huitzilopochtli. Her mother, Coatlicue already had four hundred children which Coyolxauhqui was the head of them, and when Coyolxauhqui discovered that her mother was pregnant she urged the other children to join in to kill their mother because she had dishonored them. When Huitzilopochtli was fully born he protected his mother by decapitating Coyolxauhqui, but keeping her head intact, and getting rid of all the other children. Archaeologists founded the stone of Coyolxauhqui, an enormous stone monolith carved in low relief at the base of Huitzilopochtli’s side of the temple at the Temple of Mayor. The carving was originally painted is eleven feet in diameter, and her head and limbs are separated from her torso and organized in a pinwheel shape. She is shown as a decapitated and dismembered naked woman and thus she represents shame and dishonor in the Aztec society, because nakedness was a form of humiliation and defeat.

Golden bells decorated her cheeks, feathers and ornaments adorn her hair, and she wears elaborate earrings, sandals, bracelets, and a serpent belt which viewers can see monsters’ faces at her joints that connects her to other female deities-some whom are associated with trouble and chaos. After her brother decapitated her, her head ascended to the sky where she remained as the moon along with her other brothers and sisters who became the stars. The monolith is a lesson and a constant ritual reminder of Coyolxauhqui as a woman of discord, which she is decapitated repeatedly and women in Aztec society were thus sacrificed which sent a forceful message about the profound, but dangerous nature of female power. This shows the complexity of how Aztec society view women.
Like the Aztec society, the Mayan society also worshipped many gods and one important goddess that is associated with women is the Mayan moon goddess commonly known as Ix Chel. In the Mayan pantheon she has two aspects and form as a young moon goddess and as an old moon goddess. She has jaguar claws, on her head she wore a serpent, and the pattern on her skirt was of bones in the form of a cross. Sometimes she is depicted weaving at the loom, because not only is she the moon goddess, but also of fertility and textile, she had four symbols in four different colors: red, white, black, and yellow, which were associated with the four segments of the universe. One depiction of the moon goddess was drawing 18 which shows two figures in an intimate embrace and position in a sexually explicit scene. Although drawings of explicit sexual scenes were common in many art of other civilizations, it was uncommon in Mesoamerican art especially in Mayan society, especially in such a direct representation of sexual intercourse. The drawing depicts two nude figures in an erotic embrace, where the male sexual desire is directed toward the female figure who is still partly clothes; she wears a triangular cloth sarong hugging her hips, an elaborate cloth cap, and has markings on her cheeks which stress her important status, and her profile of her face and the proportion of her body seemed more idealized than the male figure. The reason this image is uncommon in Mayan art tradition and society is because they do not make these explicit sexual scenes and Mayan women do not casually engage in physical contact with men whatsoever, unless they are married. Drawing 18 with its explicit sexual theme is related in some ways to the depiction of bloodletting and the idea of fertility was one of its important component. Bloodletting and sacrifices are integral and important in Mesoamerican societies because they believed that humans are sustained by the gods’ sacrifices. They knew that the gods were vulnerable, and they must also sustain them which is why blood was the very essence of life. Because of this belief, warfare in Mesoamerica became very ritualized and declared for the sake of gaining captives to gain favor from the gods and warriors who died valiantly in battles became companions of the sun in the afterlife. Women also sacrificed themselves not in the battles, but through childbirth. Just as the warriors fought to kill or sacrifice an enemy who then became a source of power and fertility for the grave, the pregnant woman fought to capture a being from the underworld that was about to appear on earth. This was why women who died in childbirth were highly regarded because they are sacrificing themselves to bright forth new life, and in the afterlife they became companion to the moon goddess and follow the sum to the underworld.
Female goddesses were highly regarded and played important roles in Mesoamerican societies religiously, socially, and politically because they are the major forces that influenced the laws and regulations the states made that directly affect women. The Aztec civilization and Mayan civilization are two civilizations that used female goddesses and the theme of feminine power to justify, explain, and emphasized the roles women have and are expected to do in their societies.