Key Info

- Goddess who gave birth to the moon and stars

Brief Bio

Coatlicue is represented as a woman wearing a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands, and skulls. Her feet and hands are adorned with claws and her breasts are depicted as hanging flaccid from pregnancy. Her face is formed by two facing serpents, which represent blood spurting from her neck after she was decapitated.

According to Aztec mythology, the goddess Coatlicue became miraculously pregnant when a ball of feathers fell on her while she was sweeping a temple—an event that symbolizes divine conception and cosmic destiny. She was to give birth to Huitzilopochtli, the future god of war and the sun. Interpreting this as dishonor, her daughter Coyolxauhqui, along with her 400 brothers, plotted to kill her. Just as the attack began, Huitzilopochtli emerged fully armed from his mother, defeated his siblings, and cast Coyolxauhqui into the sky, where she became the moon. This myth represents the triumph of cosmic order over chaos and the daily rebirth of the sun.