Tōnacācihuātl

In Aztec mythology, Tōnacācihuātl (Nahuatl pronunciation: [toːnakaːˈsiwaːt͡ɬ]) was a creator and goddess of fertility, worshiped for peopling the earth and making it fruitful.^[3] Most Colonial-era manuscripts equate her with Ōmecihuātl.^[4] Tōnacācihuātl was the consort of Tōnacātēcuhtli.^[5] She is also referred to as Ilhuicacihuātl or "Heavenly Lady."^[6]

Tonacacihuatl
Goddess of the Creation[1]
Tōnacācihuātl as depicted in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis
Other names	Ometeotl, Omecihuatl, Citlalcueitl
Abode	Omeyocan (Thirteenth Heaven)[1]
Gender	Female
Region	Mesoamerica
Ethnic group	Aztec, Tlaxcaltec, Toltec (Nahoa)
Genealogy
Parents	None (self-created)
Siblings	None
Consort	Tonacatecuhtli (Codex Zumarraga)
Children	• With Ometecuhtli: Xipe-Totec, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli (Codex Zumarraga)[1] • By fecund action: the 1,600 gods Nauhtzonteteo (Tecpatl)[2]

Tonacacihuatl is depicted in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis.^[7]

Tonacacíhuatl and Tonacatecuhtli as depicted in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.^[7]

Etymology

The god's name is a compound of two Nahuatl words: tōnacā and cihuātl.^[8] While cihuātl can be translated "woman" or "lady", tōnacā presents several possible interpretations. Some read this root as tonacā (without the long 'o'), consisting of nacatl, meaning "human flesh" or "food", with the possessive prefix to ("our"). By this etymology, Tōnacācihuātl would mean "Lady of Our Food" or "Lady of Our Flesh", most commonly rendered "Lady of Our Sustenance."^[4] The word tōnac simply means "abundance", giving Tōnacācihuātl the alternate reading "Lady of Abundance."^[8]

Origin and role

Tōnacācihuātl was the Central Mexican form of the creator goddess common to Mesoamerican religions.^[4] According to the Codex Ríos, the History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, the Histoyre du Mechique, and the Florentine Codex, Tōnacācihuātl and her counterpart Tōnacātēcuhtli resided in Ōmeyōcān, the 13th, highest heaven, from which human souls descended to earth.^[9][4][6] Tōnacācihuātl is associated with procreation, appearing in pre-Columbian art near copulating humans. In the Florentine Codex, Sahagún relates that Aztec midwives would tell newborns after bathing them, "You were created in the place of duality, the place above the nine heavens. Your mother and father—Ōmetēuctli and Ōmecihuātl, the heavenly lady—formed you, created you."^[6]

In 1629, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón also reported the use of the goddess's name in ritual planting prayers, in which a seed of corn is entrusted to the earth deity Tlaltecuhtli by a shaman who calls the kernel nohueltiuh Tōnacācihuātl ("my sister, the Lady of Abundance").^[10]

In the Codex Chimalpopoca, Tōnacātēcuhtli and Tōnacācihuātl are listed as one of several pairs of gods to whom Quetzalcoatl prays.^[11]

Nauhtzonteteo

Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, or Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl govern the divine nature divided into two gods (it is convenient to know man and woman; the man, who created and governed everything that is of the masculine gender and the woman everything that belonged to the feminine gender). Omecihuatl, for her part, gave birth to many children on the Thirteen Heavens with Ometecuhtli, and after all these births she had given birth to a flint, which in their language they call tecpatl, from which the other gods were amazed and frightened, their children agreed to throw it out of the heavens to the said flint, and thus they put into action, and that it fell in a certain part of the earth, called Chicomoztoc, which means 'Seven Caves', and that then one thousand and six hundred gods and goddesses came out of it, the Nauhtzonteteo that spread over the face of the earth, the sea, the underworld, and the heavens.^[12]

Notes

1. Cecilio A. Robelo (1905). Diccionario de Mitología Nahoa [Nahoa Mythology Dictionary] (in Spanish). Editorial Porrúa. ISBN 970-07-3149-9.
2. Cecilio A. Robelo (1905). Diccionario de Mitología Nahoa [Nahoa Mythology Dictionary] (in Spanish). Editorial Porrúa. p. 122. ISBN 970-07-3149-9.
3. Hale 1897, p. 122.
4. Miller & Taube.
5. León-Portilla.
6. Sahagún book 6.
7. Bodo Spranz (1964). Los Dioses en los Codices Mexicanos del Grupo Borgia: Tonacacihuatl-Tonacatecuhtli [The Gods in the Mexican Codices of the Borgia Group: Tonacacihuatl-Tonacatecuhtli] (in Spanish). Fondo de Cultura Económica. pp. 285–315. ISBN 968-16-1029-6.
8. Dictionnaire.
9. Garibay.
10. Ruiz de Alarcón.
11. Bierhorst.
12. Juan De Torquemada (1986). Monarquía Indiana [Indian Monarchy] (in Spanish). Editorial Porrúa. p. 68. ISBN 9789680863556.

References

• Bierhorst, John (1992). History and mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-1886-9.
• Garibay Kintana, Ángel Ma., ed. (1965). Teogonía e historia de los mexicanos: tres opúsculos del siglo xvi. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa. ISBN 9789684323124.
• Hale, Susan (1897) [1891]. Mexico. The Story of the Nations. Vol. 27 (2nd ed.). London: T. Fisher Unwin.
• León-Portilla, Miguel (1963). Aztec Thought and Culture. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806122951.
• Miller, Mary; Taube, Karl, eds. (1993). An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500279284.
• Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando (2014). Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres gentílicas que hoy viven entre los indios naturales de esta Nueva España. Barcelona: Linkgua digital. ISBN 9788498169607.
• Sahagún, Bernadino (2012). Florentine Codex Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy. Translated by Dibble, Charles E.; Anderson, Arthur J. O. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. ISBN 978-1607811619.
• Wimmer, Alexis (2006). "Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique" (online version, incorporating reproductions from Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine [1885], by Rémi Siméon). Retrieved 2016-04-05.