Note 24 — Chapter V · DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

Ciuacoatl is spoken of by Duran and Sahagun as a warrior goddess who gave the Mexicans victory over their enemies, and by Torquemada24 as the elder sister of the Mimixcoa, the stellar gods of the steppe. She it was, too, who, according to another myth, pounded the human bones brought by Quetzalcoatl from the Underworld into a paste, from which men were formed—an allusion to the belief current in Mexico that man was made, or at least “built up,” from maize.25 Sahagun says of her26 that she dispensed adverse fortune, poverty, abjectness, and misery. She was wont to appear to men in the guise of a richly dressed lady, such as frequented the court. Through the night she wandered, howling and bellowing. Occasionally she was seen carrying a cradle, and when she vanished, examination showed that the resting-place of what was believed to be an infant contained nothing but an obsidian knife, such as was used in human sacrifice.27 There are also indications that she presided over childbirth.