shall now endeavour to present the reader with a detailed account of each of these and other less important divinities who were regarded as in any way connected with the personification of the earth or the growth of the crops, their festivals and ritual.
The earth-deities seem to have been prophetic and divinatory and to have been connected with medicine, like similar European and Asiatic goddesses. Some of them, like Itzpapalotl, share the butterfly symbol with the gods of fire, with whom they are frequently connected. They are also closely associated with the deer, a fertility animal, and the eagle, the sun-bird, and their victims were, like those of the sun and war deities, decked with eagle-down.
TLAZOLTEOTL = “GODDESS OF DIRT”
- Territory: Huaxtec, Mixtec, Olmec.
- Minor Names: Tlaelquani = “Filth-eater.” Chicunaui acatl = “Nine Reed.” Teteo Innan = “Mother of the Gods.” Chiquacen acatl = “Six Reed.” Toci = “Our Grandmother.” Naui tecpatl = “Four Flint Knife.” Cocauic Xochitla = “Yellow Bloom.” Tlalli iyallo = “Heart of the Earth.” Iztac Xochitla = “White Bloom.” Ixcuine = “Four Faces.” Tonana Teumechaue = “Our mother, the goddess of the thigh-skin face-painting.”
- Calendar Places: Ruler of the fourteenth day, ocelotl, of the thirteenth week, ce olin. Seventh of the nine lords of the night.