Coatlicue

Coatlicue (Classical Nahuatl: Cōātlīcue, 'She of the Serpent Skirt') is the primordial, awesome mother goddess of earth, agricultural fertility, heroic childbirth, and the profound cosmic mystery of life and death in Mexica (Aztec) religion. Honored through high liturgical titles such as Teteo Innan ('Mother of the Gods') and Toci ('Our Grandmother'), she personifies telluric matter itself: the nourishing womb that yields botanical sustenance for all living beings, and simultaneously the universal tomb that claims and digests mortal remains to fuel perpetual renewal. Her central foundational myth, recorded in Book III of the Florentine Codex, recounts her ascetic devotion on the windswept summit of sacred Mount Coatepec ('Snake Mountain'), where she spent her days in pious contemplation, sweeping the temple grounds; upon discovering a floating downy ball of celestial hummingbird feathers and tucking it into her waistband, she miraculously conceived the imperial solar patron Huitzilopochtli. When her eldest daughter Coyolxauhqui (the moon goddess) and her four hundred stellar sons (the Centzon Huitznahua) resolved to decapitate her to wipe away what they perceived as a dishonorable pregnancy, Huitzilopochtli was born in a blaze of fire at the moment of assault, brandishing the Xiuhcoatl fire-serpent to strike down the invaders and protect the divine mother. In world art and archaeology, Coatlicue is immortalized by the monumental Coatlicue statue—a colossal 2.52-meter andesite masterpiece weighing twelve metric tons unearthed in 1790 in Mexico City's Plaza Mayor—combining two confronting rattlesnake heads surging from a severed neck, an intricate pectoral collar of severed hands and human hearts, and a dense skirt of intertwined vipers.

9 min read · Reviewed on September 30, 2026 · How we research

Serpent skirt, two serpent heads in place of a head, necklace of hands and hearts with a skull

Primary sources

• Bernardino de Sahagún (mentor of the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco), Florentine Codex (Book III: The prodigious conception and the battle of Coatepec). translation: Facsimile edition and translation under the supervision of Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. read
• Diego Durán (Dominican chronicler in colonial Mexico), Historia de las Indias (Chapters on the expedition to Aztlan and the maternal figure of Coatlicue). translation: Translation by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden (University of Oklahoma Press). read
• Antonio de León y Gama (New Spanish scholar of the 18th century), Description of the two stones discovered in the Main Square of Mexico in 1790 (Study of Coatlicue). translation: Historical edition of 1792 digitally archived in the repository of the National Library of Mexico. read
• Anonymous Nahua (scribes and painters of Central Mexico), Codex Borbonicus (Pages of the Veintena of Ochpaniztli and Rites of the Sacred Broom). translation: Edition by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso archived in the Mesoamerican digital library. read

Studies

• Eduardo Matos Moctezuma (archaeologist and researcher of the Templo Mayor), . Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 2010. open
• Justino Fernández (philosopher and historian of Mexican art), . Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, 1954. open
• Hartley Burr Alexander (anthropologist of Native American religions), . Marshall Jones Company, Boston (Archive.org), 1920. open
• Leonardo López Luján (senior researcher at the Templo Mayor Museum), . University of New Mexico Press, 2005. open