Note 67 — Chapter V · DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER (continued 2)

Like Mixcoatl, with whom she is closely associated, Itzpapalotl appears to have been originally one of the ancient stellar and lightning deities of the Chichimec or nomadic tribes of the northern plains. Later, on the abandonment of the hunting mode of subsistence and the acceptance of a more settled and agricultural mode of life by the tribes who worshipped her, Itzpapalotl would appear (as the allusion to her in the song to Tlazolteotl seems to show) to have become a goddess of the food-supply, the melon-patch, and the maize-crop. She was one of the Tzitzimimê, or demons of darkness, and as such symbolically took insect shape (cf. Xochiquetzal as a spider), but beneath her butterfly form there lurks the symbol of the old, fierce earth-mother with claws and merciless, protruding teeth, which were originally evolved from those of the cipactli, or earth-monster. It seems to me also that she bears about her the marks of the deer, and at this I am not surprised, as I am convinced that in many lands the deer is regarded as a surrogate of the dragon, and is thus frequently associated with fire and water. Indeed, in places, Itzpapalotl is tacitly identified with the mythical deer Itzcuêyê,67 the captive and wife of Mixcoatl.