Metadata of the chapter that will be visualized online
Chapter Title Astronomical Deities in Ancient Mesoamerica
Copyright Year 2014
Copyright Holder Springer Science+Business Media New York
Corresponding Author Family Name Milbrath
Particle
Given Name Susan
Suffix
Division/Department Florida Museum of Natural History
Organization/University University of Florida
City Gainesville
State FL
Country USA
Email [email protected]
Abstract The best known astronomical deities in ancient Mesoamerica are the sun,
moon, and Venus. The Milky Way was also deified, and its constellations were
visualized as celestial animals or locations. The sun and Venus were male
deities, but the moon had both male and female aspects. Some of these concepts
survive today in Mesoamerican ethnographic accounts referencing different
transformations of the moon.
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1 Astronomical Deities in Ancient2 Mesoamerica 553 Susan Milbrath
4 Contents
5 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
6 Sacred Star Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
7 Venus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
8 Solar Deities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9 Sun and Moon Paired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
10 Lunar Deities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
11 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12Abstract
13 The best known astronomical deities in ancient Mesoamerica are the sun, moon,
14 and Venus. The Milky Way was also deified, and its constellations were visu-
15 alized as celestial animals or locations. The sun and Venus were male deities, but
16 the moon had both male and female aspects. Some of these concepts survive
17 today in Mesoamerican ethnographic accounts referencing different transforma-
18 tions of the moon.
19 Introduction
20 Mesoamerica includes a rich array of astronomical imagery, best known from the
21 lowland Maya and highland Aztec cultures of the Postclassic period
22 (AD 900–1520). This chapter focuses on deities representing the sun, moon, and
23 Venus. Other planets were certainly worshipped, but the associated deities are not
S. Milbrath
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
C.L.N. Ruggles (ed.), Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy,
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_55,# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
1
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24 recorded in ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources. These accounts most often
25 refer to deities of the sun, moon, and Venus but also provide some information
26 about deification of the Milky Way and important star groups.
27 Sacred Star Groups
28 Although more commonly seen as a road, a river, or a place of death, the Milky
29 Way is sometimes visualized as a celestial snake among the contemporary Maya,
30 a reptilian form that may also be evident in Classic Maya art (AD 300–900;
31 Milbrath 1999). This Milky Way “Cosmic Monster” can be represented with
32 a skyband body that bears symbols of the sun, moon, and Venus. A skyband also
33 appears on the Cosmic Monster in Postclassic codices (painted screenfold books),
34 as on Dresden Codex 74, where a Venus God (God L) is paired with the aged
35 goddess O (see Au1“▶Astronomy in the Dresden Codex,” Fig. 55.5). The Postclassic
36 Paris Codex (23–24) depicts a Maya zodiac of 13 constellations, showing five
37 animal constellations on a skyband, symbolizing star groups at the intersection of
38 the Milky Way and ecliptic. Among these are a turtle referencing stars in Orion,
39 a rattlesnake constellation that includes the Pleiades, and a fish-snake formed by
40 stars in Sagittarius (Bricker and Bricker 2011). There is also a scorpion constella-
41 tion representing stars in Scorpius, a surprising and rare congruency with western
42 astronomy. This zodiac accompanies an 1,820-day almanac comprised of five
43 periods of 364 days, each subdivided into sets of 28 days, probably used for
44 computing the sidereal lunar month (Aveni 2001).
45 The Aztecs of highland Central Mexico worshipped the Milky Way as a male
46 and female couple known as Citlaltonac (“resplendent stars”) and Citlalicue
47 (“star skirt”), a goddess also called the “mother of the gods” (Sahagun
48 1950–1982; Seler 1990–2000). This Central Mexican avatar of the Milky Way
49 also appears in the Codex Borgia, which depicts her in an elongated form with a star
50 skirt (Fig. 55.1, Borgia 46; Milbrath 2013). Fire serpents in the central scene may
51 symbolize the stars in Scorpius on the Milky Way. This fire serpent is represented
52 more graphically by a serpent with a curved row of stars on its snout in Aztec art
53 (Milbrath 1980, 1997). To the Aztecs, star groups on the Milky Way were espe-
54 cially important. The Pleiades, described as the celestial “marketplace,” was the
55 focus of the New Fire Ceremony every 52 years in November (Milbrath 1980;
56 Sahagun 1980–1982). Other Milky Way constellations include a bird with
57 a bloodletter symbolizing the Southern Cross (Aveni 2001; Milbrath 2013).
58 Venus
59 Feathered serpent images seem to be related to Venus throughout Mesoamerica
60 (Milbrath 1999). Sometimes, Venus symbols are attached to the feathered serpent
61 or his anthropomorphic counterpart, known as Quetzalcoatl (“feathered serpent”) in
62 Central Mexico and Kukulcan in the Maya area (Milbrath 1999). In the central
2 S. Milbrath
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63 highlands, the wind god aspect of Venus, called Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, is associated
64 with round temples, a link also seen in the Maya lowlands of Yucatan with
65 Kukulcan. Aztec ethnohistorical accounts identify Quetzalcoatl as a culture hero
66 who descended into the underworld for 8 days and was transformed into the
67 Morning Star, called Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (“lord of the House of Dawn”). This
68 is a metaphor for Venus transitioning from Evening Star to Morning Star during
69 8 days of inferior conjunction (Aveni 2001; Milbrath 2013). A Central Mexican
70 narrative in the Codex Borgia shows Quetzalcoatl being transformed by fire at the
71 center of the scene on page 46 (Fig. 55.1, Borgia 46). Below, the next scene in
72 the narrative shows Quetzalcoatl drilling a fire on the back of a fire serpent encasing
Fig. 55.1 Codex Borgia 46. Framing elements represent the goddess of the Milky Way, and
Quetzalcoatl burning in a fire surrounded by Fire Serpents in the center alludes to Venus
transitioning from superior conjunction to the Evening Star, who emerges to drill a fire on the
Fire Serpent constellation, representing stars in Scorpius on the western horizon at dusk in
November
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73 the Fire God, Xiuhtecuhtli, apparently referring to the dusk rise of the Evening Star,
74 when Venus was in Scorpius just above the western horizon (Milbrath 2013).
75 Venus imagery in Yucatan often appears to be linked with the number eight,
76 referencing either eight days of inferior conjunction or the 8-year cycle of the
77 Venus almanac. Integration of five synodical Venus cycles with the solar year
78 resulted in a seasonal almanac that repeated after a short period of 8 years, as
79 seen in Mesoamerican codices with Venus almanacs. Tlauhuizcalpantecuhtli is the
80 dominant figure in Postclassic Venus almanacs of Central Mexico (Codex Borgia,
81 Cospi, and Vaticanus B), but subtle variations in the Codex Borgia show that the
82 god of the Morning Star had five different aspects (Milbrath 2013). The Maya
83 Dresden Codex (46–50) also shows five variants of the Morning Star, but here
84 Tlauhuizcalpantecuhtli (Dresden 48) is only one of the five different avatars of
85 Venus, each apparently representing a different seasonal aspect of the Morning Star
86 (Milbrath 1999). On Dresden 49, the Central Mexican fire god appears as a dry
87 season avatar of Venus. Dresden 46 represents a different seasonal aspect of Venus,
88 here in the guise of the Postclassic Maya deity God L, known as a lord of the
89 underworld in Classic Maya art.
90 Another Classic Maya Venus god appears as one of triad of brothers in myth-
91 ological texts at Palenque. A Mopan legend collected in the early twentieth century
92 identifies a related triad, naming, Venus as the elder brother, the sun as the third
93 born, and the middle brother being either Jupiter or Mars (Milbrath 1999;
94 Thompson 1930). Both these planets were probably worshipped in Precolumbian
95 Mesoamerica, but information on them is scarce. A “Mars Beast” does appear in
96 two Postclassic Maya codices (Madrid and Dresden; Aveni 2001; Bricker and
97 Bricker 2011). He may also have a Classic period counterpart represented by
98 a celestial deer (Milbrath 1999). K’awil, a god of royal lineages, is associated
99 with royal rituals linked to dated events involving Jupiter and Saturn (Milbrath
100 2004). His counterpart in Central Mexico may be Tezcatlipoca (“smoking mirror”),
101 a god of the night sky who seems to be connected with the moon and various
102 planets, and also Ursa Major (Milbrath 2013).
103 Solar Deities
104 The principal Central Mexican solar god is Tonatiuh (“sun”), often represented as
105 youthful warrior with a rayed disk (Fig. 55.2, Borgia 55, right). Tonatiuh is rarely
106 mentioned in mythology, but both Piltzintecuhtli (“prince lord”) and Xochipilli
107 (“flower prince”) appear in mythic cycles. Piltzintecuhtli is most probably the sun’s
108 nocturnal avatar. Xochipilli, a youthful solar god, seems to be linked with the rainy
109 season, the season of flowers and butterflies (Milbrath 2013). Huitzilopochtli
110 (“hummingbird of the south”) seems to represent a dry season aspect of the sun
111 (Milbrath 1997). His name and costuming indicate that he is closely associated with
112 the hummingbird. Other birds representing the sun in Aztec cosmology include the
113 eagle and roseate spoonbill (Milbrath 2013).
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114 Among the Maya, the sun’s animal avatars include the red macaw, the hum-
115 mingbird, and the puma (Milbrath 1999). The sun incarnate is Kinich Ahau (“sun
116 lord”) in Classic and Postclassic texts. Kinich Ahau is youthful in Classic Maya art,
117 but in the Postclassic codices, he is an aged, bearded male who is known as
118 God G. A separate deity, Hun Ahau (“one lord”), one of the youthful Hero Twins
119 who plays ball in the underworld, represents an underworld aspect of the sun. Hun
120 Ahau can be linked with the third born of the Palenque triad (GIII), who also
121 represents a nocturnal aspect of the sun (Milbrath 1999). In the Palenque triad,
122 a lunar goddess (“Lady Egret”) is the mother of the three brothers, but more often
123 the moon and sun as siblings or youthful rivals.
124 Sun and Moon Paired
125 Chatino ethnographic accounts from the highlands of Oaxaca say the sun and
126 moon are brothers who rose up to the sky on their mother’s cotton thread
127 (Baez-Jorge 1988). In a similar fashion, the Classic Maya solar twin, Hun Ahau,
128 is paired with his lunar twin, Yax Balam (“first Jaguar”). They are the counterparts
129 of Hunahpu (“one hunter”) and his twin brother, Xbalanque, who is a jaguar aspect
130 of the moon in the colonial-period Tıtulo de Totonicapan (Milbrath 1999). Like the
131 Popol Vuh, this chronicle describes the primordial birth of the sun and moon, with
132 Hunahpu as the first to emerge from the underworld, followed closely thereafter by
133 Xbalanque.
134 Aztec accounts of the birth of the sun and moon are somewhat similar, with the
135 sun emerging before the moon, and the pair being youthful males (but not brothers).
136 Legends say that Nanahuatl threw himself into the fire and emerged as the resplen-
137 dent sun, but the cowardly Nahuitecpatl (“4 Knife”) or Metztli (“moon”) entered
138 the fire after it had died down, so the moon was not burned, only covered with ashes,
139 apparently an explanation of why the moon is darker than the sun (Milbrath 2013;
140 Sahagun 1950–1982).
Fig. 55.2 Codex Borgia 55, detail. On the right is Tonatiuh, the sun god with his solar disk, andon the left is Tlazolteotl with the lunar symbol showing the rabbit on the moon
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141 Almanacs recording subdivisions of the 260-day calendar in the codices pair
142 Tecciztecatl (“conch-shell lord”) with Tonatiuh, contrasting the sun’s youthful
143 appearance as a warrior with that of Tecciztecatl, who is invariably old and often
144 bearded, and sometimes has attributes of a priest. Another pairing of the sun
145 and moon is seen in the solar god Xochipill who is married to the lunar goddess,
146 Xochiquetzal (“flower quetzal”), both being rainy season deities associated
147 with butterflies and flowers. The Codex Borgia 57 shows them as an antagonistic
148 marital pair, for Xochiquetzal turns her back on Xochipilli, just as the moon seems
149 to move away from the sun right after the new moon (Fig. 55.3, Borgia 57;
150 Milbrath 2013).
151 Aztec legends also recount an antagonistic pairing of the sun and moon in
152 the legend of Huitzilopochtli and his sister, Coyolxauhqui (“she of the bells”).
153 The Aztec festival of Panquetzaliztli reenacted Huitzilopochtli’s triumph over
154 Coyolxauhqui at the onset of the dry season in November. The newborn
155 Huitzilopochtli decapitates Coyolxauhqui with the Xiuhcoatl (the fire serpent),
156 a creature symbolizing stars in Scorpius seen on the western horizon in
157 November during Panquetzaliztli (Milbrath 1997). The birth of Huitzilopochtli
158 represents the seasonal triumph of the sun in the dry season, when
159 the sun dominated the cloudless sky (Milbrath 1980). The myth also refers to
160 the water drying up after Coyolxauhqui was decapitated, another metaphor
161 of seasonal transition. Because the Aztecs believed that the moon died
162 when it disappeared at the time of the new moon (Sahagun 1950–1982), the
Fig. 55.3 Codex Borgia 57, Deities pairs as marital couples. Among the couples only the solar
and lunar deities are in disaccord, with Xochiquetzal, the young Moon Goddess, turning away
from the solar god Xochipilli. Both deities have similar seasonal associations, being associated
with flowers and butterflies, which are abundant during the rainy season
6 S. Milbrath
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163 death of the moon goddess in the legend could allude to the new moon, or
164 alternatively, her death could symbolize a lunar eclipse at the time of the full
165 moon (Milbrath 1997).
166 Lunar Deities
167 Because of the complexity of lunar imagery, the remainder of this chapter focuses
168 on the moon. Many lunar attributes seem to be linked with gender roles. Female
169 lunar imagery is dominant, but male moon deities can be recognized in Maya and
170 Central Mexican art, and occasionally, the same deity has both male and female
171 avatars. Female lunar deities are often linked to spinning, weaving, and childbirth,
172 all feminine activities. Male lunar deities are involved in masculine roles, such as
173 ball playing or the priesthood. Some ethnographic accounts from Central Mexico
174 describe the moon as a bisexual being with both male and female aspects (Milbrath
175 1995, 1999; Sandstrom and Sandstrom 1986). Usually Au2, a female aspect of the moon
176 controls menstruation, as among the Quiche Maya and the Tepehua, Nahua people
177 who call this lunar goddess the Red Siren. This realm, however, is not always under
178 the control of a feminine moon, for the Totonac of Veracruz say that the Moon God
179 controls menstruation and formation of the fetus.
180 Among the Nahua, Tonantsi (“our sacred mother”) and the Virgin of Guadalupe
181 are equated with the moon, just as the Aztecs identified Tonantzin (Tonan) with the
182 Virgin during the early colonial period (Broda de Casas 1991; Sahagun 1950–1982;
183 Sandstrom and Sandstrom 1986). Tonantsi, the most important spirit in Nahua
184 religious thought, is associated with positive aspects of the moon. She is also an
185 earth deity because she lives in a sacred cave on earth and controls the seeds,
186 including most prominently maize (Sandstrom 1991; Sandstrom and Sandstrom
187 1986). Thompson (1971) Au3noted long ago that there is a link between the moon
188 and maize agriculture in ethnographic accounts, and this connection is confirmed
189 in Classic Maya images that show the moon merged with the Maize God
190 (Milbrath 1999).
191 During the Classic period, the Moon Goddess is most often youthful, like
192 Goddess I in the Postclassic codices, but there are both young and old moon deities
193 in the codices, and also male and female aspects, with varying seasonal associa-
194 tions. On Dresden 74, the aged Goddess O pouring water is probably an aged aspect
195 of the moon producing rainfall during the rainy season, whereas on Madrid 79, an
196 aged lunar goddess is weaving, performing an activity associated with the dry
197 season (Figs. 55.4, 55.5; Milbrath 1999). Specific lunar phases may be implicated
198 in the gender of the moon, as seen in the colonial-period Popol Vuh, where
199 Xbalanque may represent the full moon and a youthful goddess could be the
200 moon in other phases (Tedlock 1985). Xbalanque seems related to the Postclassic
201 God CH, who is a youthful, jaguar-spotted god (Milbrath 1999).
202 Thompson (1972) identified most of the females in the Dresden Codex as the
203 Postclassic Maya Moon Goddess. Some have questioned his identifications
204 (Bricker and Bricker 2011), but multiple lunar deities would seem to be the norm
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205 in ethnographic accounts, where the moon plays many different roles. Variations in
206 representations of the lunar complex may allude to different lunar phases or
207 seasons. There is also a similar multiplicity of lunar deities in highland Central
208 Mexico (Milbrath 1995, 1999, 2013).
209 Although the highland Moon God, Tecciztecatl, is usually an aged male, he
210 appears as an aged female in one section of the Codex Borgia (10). His name,
211 Conch-shell Lord, links him with a marine environment, evoking how the moon
212 controls the tides. As previously noted, he is co-regent with the sun god, Tonatiuh,
213 in the 260-day calendar, and in this context, Tecciztecatl is sometimes fused with
214 Tezcatlipoca, as on Codex Borbonicus 6. Tezcatlipoca shares traits with the moon.
215 Like the ever-changing moon, he is a master of deception. Tezcatlipoca has many
216 disguises in the epic tale of his conflicts with the Venus god, Quetzalcoatl. He
217 transforms himself into an old man, a naked Huastec, and an old woman, and he
218 also appears as a spider that transforms itself into a jaguar in a ball game with
219 Quetzalcoatl (Sahagun 1950–1982).
220 Tezcatlipoca seems to have so many different aspects that he may embody the
221 night itself, including the stars, planets, and the moon (Milbrath 2013). Tepeyollotl,
222 the jaguar aspect of Tezcatlipoca, is a calendar deity in a number of contexts, and he
223 plays a nocturnal role as eighth Lord of the Night. Another avatar of Tezcatlipoca
Fig. 55.4 Madrid Codex30a, Aged Goddess O pours
water during the rainy season
(After Milbrath 1999,
Fig. 4.8a)
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224 (Itztli) appears as second among the Lords of the Night, a calendar sequence of nine
225 deities that may embody a lunar count (Milbrath 2013).
226 In Central Mexico, Xochiquetzal is a weaving goddess who seems to represent
227 the moon in her role as wife of a solar god (Xochipilli or Piltzintecuhtli in different
228 mythic cycles). According to the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (22v), Xochiquetzal
229 was the patroness of pregnant women, and those that knew how to spin, weave, and
230 embroider honored her because she was the first to spin and weave. Xochiquetzal
231 was honored in the Aztec festival of Atamalcualiztli, a ceremony performed every
232 8 years (Sahagun 1950–1982, 1997; Nicholson 1971). The timing of the ceremony
233 corresponds to an 8-year cycle of 99 lunar months that coordinates with five Venus
234 cycles of 584 days each (Milbrath 2000, 2013).
235 In the Aztec festival of Hueypachtli, a young woman impersonating
236 Xochiquetzal was sacrificed. A man then donned her skin and deity costume and
237 was forced to weave (Sahagun 1950–1982). This transformation of the goddess
238 represents a gender change, and the peculiar act of making a man to do a woman’s
239 work relates to the gender ambiguity surrounding the cult of the lunar deities
240 (Milbrath 1995).
241 Tlazolteotl is often identified as a lunar deity, although she clearly represents
242 a different lunar goddess than Xochiquetzal (Milbrath 1995, 2013; Thompson
243 1939). She is most closely connected with spinning and cotton, whereas
244 Xochiquetzal is linked to weaving and embroidery. Spinning is a generic female
245 task appropriate to Tlazolteotl’s role as a goddess of the moon. Spinning itself
246 may be linked to the waxing and waning of the moon, as the spindle grows
247 fat with thread, just as the moon grows round as it waxes (Sullivan 1982).
Fig. 55.5 Madrid Codex79c while her aged dry seasoncounterpart weaves cloth
during the dry season (After
Milbrath 1999, Fig. 4.9a)
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248 This in turn becomes a metaphor for pregnancy with the winding thread
249 representing the growing fetus. Tlazolteotl is the Moon Goddess in her role as
250 the goddess of childbirth. Her association with snake imagery probably symbolizes
251 the moon’s monthly trip into the interior of the earth, the abode of snakes,
252 and possibly also the serpentine path of the moon. Maya lunar goddesses are
253 similarly associated with snakes, pregnancy, childbirth, spinning and weaving
254 (Milbrath 1999).
255 Tlazolteotl wears the yacametztli (“nose moon”) ornament and also appears
256 alongside a moon symbol in a number of contexts (Fig. 55.2;Borgia 55, left). She is
257 one of the nine Lords of the Night, and a lunar symbol sometimes replaces the
258 goddess in this sequence of nine deities (Codex Cospi). Tlazolteotl may be
259 connected with both the moon and the earth (Sullivan 1982; Thompson 1939).
260 Among the Huastecs today, where the cult to Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina may have origi-
261 nated, the goddess of the earth and water is also a goddess of the moon (Sullivan
262 1982). Ixcuina is a Huastec word, meaning “lady cotton,” which is appropriate to
263 her origin in the Huasteca, the chief center for cotton production. The earth-mother
264 goddesses all seem to display “lunar connections” and that this is particularly true
265 of Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina (Nicholson 1971). As Ixcuina, she is also a goddess of salt in
266 the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (17v), apparently because the moon plays an
267 important role in tides that affect salt harvesting.
268 Whereas Tlazolteotl is a woman of childbearing age (Codex Borbonicus 13) and
269 has a close connection with women who died in childbirth (Cihuapipiltin),
270 Teteoinnan (“mother of the gods”) and her alter ego, Toci (“our grandmother”),
271 both represent aged aspects of the moon (Milbrath 2013). Sahagun (1950–1982)
272 records that Teoteoinnan-Toci was worshipped by fortune-tellers, physicians, mid-
273 wives, and owners of sweat baths. Medicine and childbirth were also the domains of
274 the Maya Moon Goddess in the codices, but youthful aspects of the moon goddess
275 dominate these realms, whereas the aged lunar goddess is associated with water and
276 weaving (Thompson 1960, 1972).
277 Lunar iconography is evident in the decapitation of Teteoinnan-Toci’s imper-
278 sonator during Ochpaniztli, coinciding with the autumn equinox. During the festi-
279 val, a woman representing the goddess was decapitated, and the priest who donned
280 her skin was called tecciszcuacuilli, a name that probably refers to the Moon God,
281 Tecciztecatl (Gonzalez Torres 1975; Sahagun 1950–1982). A transformation from
282 female to male in lunar imagery associated with decapitation may symbolize the
283 changing lunar phases.
284 The rabbit on the moon (Fig. 55.2, left), a pan-Mesoamerican counterpart for our
285 “man on the moon,” is an image closely associated with the Central Mexican
286 pulque cult, for the pulque gods were sometimes referred to collectively as the
287 “400 rabbits.” Pulque gods wearing the yacametztli ornament have all been
288 interpreted as lunar deities (Seler 1990–2000), but their lunar connection derives
289 primarily from observations of the lunar phases, which are important in planting
290 and tapping the maguey cactus used to make pulque (Milbrath 2013). A lunar
291 connection is also seen in the goddess of the maguey plant, Mayahuel, who was
292 a goddess of weaving, like Tlazolteotl, but instead of cotton, she wove maguey fiber
10 S. Milbrath
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293 used in the clothing of the poor – making her a “poor man’s Tlazolteotl” (Milbrath
294 2013; Sullivan 1982).
295 The multiple roles the moon plays in art and rituals mirror the complexity of
296 lunar imagery seen in modern ethnographic accounts from Mesoamerica. We are
297 fortunate that ethnographic and ethnohistoric data allow us to recognize a number
298 of important patterns for astronomical deities in ancient Mesoamerica. Future
299 research on calendar rituals holds promise for helping to determine more about
300 the role of astronomy in religion.
301 Au4References
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