STATUARY AND PAINTINGS
An interesting stone figure of Mixcoatl was discovered in the ruins of the Castillo de Teayo, to the west of the pyramid. It is made of sandstone, and the frontal aspect shows the god wearing a high panache of feathers, a headdress flanked by tufts or puffings of some textile material from which feathers depend, and an elaborate necklace. The skirt, the upper part of which is V-shaped, hangs down to the ankles, and is tied up behind in a double knot. In his left hand he carries the bag which holds obsidian arrow-heads, his invariable symbol, and in the right the S-formed lightning symbol, with which he is often represented, as in the Codex Magliabecchiano. Another relief from the same site shows him carrying the same symbols. His hair is decorated with feather-balls, as in the Codex Magliabecchiano and Duran’s illustration. In a painting from Teopancaxo he wears a peculiar headdress from which falls behind a large panache of feathers, and which seems to be decorated with down; a horizontal band crosses the face beneath the eye and covers the whole of the nose. In one hand he carries the lightning symbol, from which spring serpentine streaks of lightning, and in the other a small shield like a sunflower and three arrows with blunt ends.
AS IZTAC MIXCOATL = “WHITE CLOUD SERPENT”
- Minor Names: Ce eecatl = “One Wind.”
- Relationship: Husband of Ilancuêyê and progenitor of the Xelhua national ancestors, Tenoch, Ulmecatl, Xicalancatl, Mixtecatl, Otomitl. Husband of a second wife, Chimamatl, by whom he had a son, Quetzalcoatl.
- Compass Direction: Upper region.