Chalchiuhtlicue

Chalchiuhtlicue (also Chalciuhtlicue, Chalcihuitlicue or Acuecucyoticihuati ) was in the Aztec mythology, the goddess of the waters and rivers. Chalchiuhtlicue means the jade skirt in Nahuatl.

Appearance

Chalchiuhtlicue was a young, beautiful dressed girl. Pictures of her are known from numerous Mexican manuscripts: the Codex Borgia (Plate 11 and 650), the Codex Borbonicus ( page 5), the Codex Rios ( page 17) (part of the Codex Telleriano - Remensis ) and the Florentine Codex ( panel 11 ). According to its name, it was usually carved as a sculpture in greenish stone. A sculpture showing kneeling with a youthful face, which is emphasized by lateral braids. Amaranth seeds to the headgear refer to their divine status. In pictorial representations she wears a green or blue skirt, as well as necklaces and earrings with precious stones. Sometimes, water flows out of their skirts, can be seen in the newborn or it is symbolized by a river, on whose banks a strewn with prickly pear Opuntia grows.

Assignments

Chalchiuhtlicue was as the wife of the rain god Tlaloc. With him, she ruled over Tlalocan, the paradise of the middle level of the Aztec afterlife, open to all drowned and those who had died of something that had to do with water. In Tlalocan ruled abundance and joy. With Tlaloc Chalchiuhtlicue Tecciztecatl had fathered, the ( Leyenda de los soles ) subject according to the Aztec creation myth in the creation of the Fifth Sun because of his fear of fire Nanahuatzin. Before the Fifth Sun was created by Nanahuatzins prowess, ruled Chalchiuhtlicue about the era of the Fourth Sun, which went down in a flood, where the people were transformed into fish. While the water Tlaloc were in principle to be a blessing, Chalchiuhtlicue was more for its ambiguous aspects. So it says in Bernardino de Sahagun:

In addition to her job as a water goddess, Chalchiuhtlicue was responsible also for the births and women in childbirth. Therefore, the priests, looked at the Aztec ritual baptism to the goddess:

The Aztec mythology sat Chalchiuhtlicue sometimes identical with the TLAXCALAN rain goddess Matlalcueitl.

In the Aztec calendar was the Chalchiuhtlicue Trecena from 1 reed assigned to the 13th snake, followed by the Trecena Tonatiuhs. Before that was the Trecena Huehuecoyotls. In Tonalamatl the Codex Borbonicus Chalchiuhtlicue the first month of the fifth week, the fifth day of the third hour of the day and the sixth hour of the night will be assumed.