CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/The gods of MexicoPublic
Page 502 of 670
Table of Contents

CHAPTER VII

NATURE AND STATUS

Quaxolotl is a variant of Chantico. The name, which signifies “split at the top,” seems to signify the kind of flame which bifurcates or splits into two tongues. She is thus connected with things double, and is the goddess who has borne twins. Sahagun, who calls her Quaxolotl-Chantico,19 thereby identifies her with that goddess, and states that she was housed in the twenty-ninth temple in the great court at Mexico, the Tetlanman, which he distinguishes from that of Chantico proper, the Tetlanman Calmecac, the twenty-seventh. He states that slaves were sacrificed here on the sign ce xochitl, “one flower,” and perhaps this fixes the date of the festival of the goddess.

502