Coyolxauhqui
Coyolxauhqui ( Nahuatl : golden bells ) was the goddess of the moon in Aztec mythology . She was the daughter of Coatlicue and the sister of the Centzon Huitznahua .
Assignments
Coyolxauhqui has also been associated with Tlazolteotl (the dirt eater). Depending on the phase of the moon, Tlatzoteotl showed a different aspect of her being. In the first phase she devoured the sins of the people, in the second she encouraged erotic play, in the third she promised fertility and in the fourth she turned into a cruel monster that devoured his lovers.
Emergence
When Coatlicue got pregnant by a ball of feathers and Huitzilopochtli grew inside her, her daughter Coyolxauhqui saw it as a shame. She instigated her 400 brothers, the Centzon Huitznahua, to commit an assassination attempt. When the siblings wanted to murder their mother on Coatepec , the snake hill, she gave birth to the fully armed Huitzilopochtli in time, who dismembered his half-sister and also killed most of her brothers. He threw the head of Coyolxauhquis into the sky, where it has since then orbited the earth as a moon, so that the earth goddess Coatlicue can always see her daughter.
archeology
On February 21, 1978, a shield-shaped stone was discovered during construction work in Mexico City . He turned out to be the bearer of a relief showing the dismembered Coyolxauhqui. She can be recognized by the bells on her face and, like her mother, wears a skull on her belt. Further excavations at the site in question uncovered the foundations of the Templo Mayor and thus the most sacred sacred building of the Aztecs, which its builders saw as the center of their spiritual universe. This confirmed what colonial evidence reported, namely that the northern half of the double temple was consecrated to the rain god Tlaloc , while the southern half was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli. Its half symbolized the mountain Coatepec, where Huitzilopochtli once slew Coyolxauhqui and threw her severed limbs down the slope. Today the relief showing the dismembered goddess is on display in the Museo del Templo Mayor .
Myth about the moon goddess and human sacrifice
It is believed that the ritual human sacrifices of the Aztecs are related to the myth of Coyolxauhqui. Many sacrifices were made based on the mythological events that led to the beheading of Coyolxauhquis by her half-brother Huitzilopochtli. The victims' heads were cut off, the rest of their bodies or their severed limbs were thrown down the temple stairs, just as Huitzilopochtli once threw the body parts of his half-sister from Coatepec. Possibly they came to rest on the relief stone below. Another find at the foot of the Templo Mayor shows Coyolxauhqui, whose chest is pierced by the fire snake Xiuhcoatl . In it you can see a representation of the heart sacrifice, in which the heart of the prisoners was cut out of the chest with an obsidian knife in honor of the gods . Presumably, the ritual human sacrifices centered around the Templo Mayor represented the victory of the Aztecs over their enemies.
literature
- Heike Owusu: symbols of the Inca, Maya and Aztecs . Schirner Verlag, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89767-073-9
- Karl Taube : Aztec and Mayan Myths . Phillip Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-010427-0
