Huixtocihuatl

Huixtocíhuatl (in the classical standardized Nahuatl spelling Huixtōcīhuatl, also recorded in sixteenth-century colonial chronicles as Uixtocíhuatl or Uixtociuatl) is the Mexica goddess of salt, of saline and oceanic waters, of mineral brine, and of the arts of chemical evaporation and salt trade in the lake basin of the Valley of Mexico. Considered in the ethnohistorical sources as the eldest sister of the rain deities Tlaloque, she forms, together with Chalchiuhtlicue (lady of the surface fresh waters) and Chicomecóatl (lady of maize and agricultural provisions), the primordial triad of vital provider goddesses responsible for the organic subsistence of the human race. According to the tradition recorded by Friar Bernardino de Sahagún in the Nahuatl manuscripts of the Florentine Codex and the Primeros Memoriales, Huixtocíhuatl quarreled with her brothers the Tlaloque over disputes about water jurisdictions; mocked and expelled by the rain gods, she took refuge in the brackish plains and on the maritime coast, where she discovered how to obtain salt by channeling salt water into clay vessels and solar evaporation ponds, gifting humanity the mineral that seasons food and preserves meat and fish. In the solar religious calendar (xiuhpohualli), her principal liturgical feast took place during the seventh twenty-day period, called Tecuilhuitontli (‘Little Feast of the Lords’), when the women salt workers (iztaponque) performed circle dances led by flower ropes (xochimecatl) and crowns of the aromatic herb iztauhyatl, culminating in the consecration of a living representative woman (ixiptla) who was sacrificed at the top of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan before the shrine of Tláloc.

6 min read · Reviewed on September 29, 2026 · How we research

The salt crystals, the flowered staff, the salt-flat and the yellow waves

Primary sources

• Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain (Book 1, ch. 20 and Book 2, ch. 26). translation: Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain (School of American Research and University of Utah, Santa Fe and Salt Lake City, 1950–1982). read
• Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales (Tepeapulco Manuscript, folio 264r). translation: Thelma D. Sullivan, H. B. Nicholson et al., Primeros Memoriales: Paleography of Nahuatl Text and English Translation (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1997). read
• Fray Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de la Tierra Firme (Treatise on Rites and Festivals). translation: Doris Heyden, Book of the Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1971). read
• Anonymous (Nahua painters and colonial glossators), Codex Telleriano-Remensis (folio 1r, section on Tecuilhuitontli). translation: Eloise Quiñones Keber, Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1995). read

Studies

• Eduard Seler, Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur amerikanischen Sprach- und Alterthumskunde (Studies on Mexica deities). A. Asher & Co. / Behrend & Co., Berlin, 1902–1923. open
• Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, Las hierbas de Tláloc (Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, vol. 14, pp. 287–314). Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, Cidade do México, 1980. open
• Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (chapter on women's festive rites and sacred victims). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991. open
• Karl Taube, Aztec and Maya Myths (The Legendary Past Series). University of Texas Press and British Museum, Austin, 1993. open