black, but shows a similarity to it in the ruffled “night-hair” with which it is covered. In most of the pictures of her in this codex her blue dress is dotted with circular white spots which are perhaps intended for stars. This garment is completed with thongs, from which depend snail-shells, a decoration also seen in the rattling girdle ornaments (citlalicue) characteristic of the Earth and Underworld goddesses.
MYTHS
According to the myth related by Motolinia,72 Ilamatecutli or Ilancuêyê, as he designates her, was the wife of Iztac Mixcoatl (q.v.), with whom she dwelt in Chicomoztoc, “the land of the seven canes,” the mythical officina gentium of the Mexican tribes, whence the aboriginal ancestors of the several races of Mexico were supposed to have had their being. By a second wife, Chinamatl, or Chimalmat, Iztac Mixcoatl became the father of Quetzalcoatl.
FESTIVAL
Tititl (“Stretching of Limbs”).—This festival was held in the Kalends of the seventeenth month, probably about December 19.73 A female slave was bought by the authorities and dressed as follows: She wore an upper garment or peplum of white stuff and a skirt of the same colour, beneath which showed the citlalicue, or star-skirt, of the goddess, a dress sprinkled with stars, cut at the ankles in the shape of many thongs, from each of which hung a small shell, so that when she walked these came together and made a rattling sound. Her sandals were white and she