coils, while to it are attached votive papers of the type frequently offered to the Tlaloquê, and bannerets are placed on the sides, on which the V-shaped point is depicted. The night-and-day symbol surmounts the whole. Though she is spoken of as having many breasts, the goddess is very rarely depicted in this manner.
MYTHS
The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says of her:
“They feign that Mayaguil was a woman with four hundred breasts, and that the gods on account of her fruitfulness changed her into the maguei, from which they make wine.”
He also speaks of her as the mother of Cinteotl, remarking that all the gods had their origin from the vine which bears the grape (the maguey-plant).
The third interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis calls her “Mayaquel, who was otherwise called Cipaquetona” (Cipactonal), and wife of Patecatl.
NATURE AND STATUS
Mayauel, as her name implies, is primarily a deity of the maguey-plant. But evidence is not wanting that she also partakes of the nature of the Earth-goddess, as her occasional appearance in the insignia of Tlazolteotl and her wearing of the colours of the Maize-goddess would seem to show. As the wife of Patecatl, the god “from the land of medicines,” she bears the ropes which symbolize the octli-wort, the plant which gave a narcotic quality to the octli drink, and which was thought of as strangling or choking the drunkard. Her bounteousness of fertility was symbolized by the possession of four hundred breasts, and in this she resembles the