Note 35 — Chapter V · DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

In an illuminating passage in his disquisition upon the Aubin tonalamatl (p. 123) Seler says: “As I have remarked at the opening of the section, the goddess Xochiquetzal is properly the expression of the day-sign xochitl. But owing to the transference of the series of rulers of the day-signs to the weeks in the peculiar way affected by the calendar-makers, that is, by a general shifting of one member,35 Xochiquetzal has been brought into association with the sign ce quauhtli (one eagle). But in Telleriano-Remensis at this week the hand-mark36 which indicates the feast-day proper of the ruler of the week stands at the first day itself—the sign ce quauhtli, that induced the calendar-makers to effect the above-described dislocation in the second half of the list of rulers. For more than one reason the day ce quauhtli must really have seemed to the priestly savants specially appropriate to the goddess Xochiquetzal, and above all, because this day was one of the five which fell at the beginning or western quarter of the tonalamatl disposed in columns of five members. Hence these five days were collectively regarded as dedicated to the earth-goddesses, and as the days in which the ghostly women dwelling in the west, the Ciuateteô, swooped down upon earth, striking the children with epilepsy and beguiling the men to lust and sin.” These Ciuateteô were stregæ, witches, succubi, and their characteristics, which are touched upon in the section dealing with Tlazolteotl, will be more fully outlined elsewhere.