Note IX-5 — Chapter IX · GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., pp. 5-6; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethnol. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 341, 349-50, condensing from and commenting upon the codices Vaticanus and Tellerianus says: 'Tonacacigua, alias Tuchiquetzal (plucking rose), and Chicomecouatl (seven serpents); wife of Tonacatlecotle; the cause of sterility, famine, and miseries of life.... Amongst Sahagun's superior deities is found Civacoatl, the 'serpent woman,' also called Tonantzin, 'our mother;' and he, sober as he is in Scriptural allusions, calls her Eve, and ascribes to her, as the interpreters [of the codices] to Tonatacinga, all the miseries and adverse things of the world. This analogy is, if I am not mistaken, the only foundation for all the allusions to Eve and her history, before, during, and after the sin, which the interpreters have tried to extract from paintings which indicate nothing of the kind. They were certainly mistaken in saying that their Tonacacinga was also called Chicomecouatl, seven serpents. They should have said Civacoatl, the serpent woman. Chicomecoatl, instead of being the cause of sterility, famine, etc., is, according to Sahagun, the goddess of abundance, that which supplies both eating and drinking: probably the same as Tzinteotl, or Cinteotl, the goddess of maize (from centli, maize), which he does not mention. There is no more foundation for ascribing to Tonacacigua the name of Suchiquetzal.' Gama, Dos Piedras, pt i., p. 39, says in effect: Cihuacounatl, or snake woman, was supposed to have given birth to two children, male and female, whence sprung the human race. It is on this account that twins are called in Mexico cocohua, 'snakes,' or in the singular cohuatl or coatl, now vulgarly pronounced coate.