Mayahuel

The Goddess of the Maguey

Domain: Maguey, Fertility & Intoxication
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Earth
Relics of Power: The Four Hundred Breasts

Speak with Mayahuel

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Aztecs (Mexica)

Region

Central Mexico

Period

14th – 16th c.

The Aztec gods were worshipped by the Mexica people from their capital, Tenochtitlan, in central Mexico. They believed the sun would only move if fed with blood, which led to the famous sacrifices atop pyramid-temples. Their world was cut short by the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

The 18-month ritual calendar brought festivals such as Toxcatl, in which a youth lived for a year as the embodiment of Tezcatlipoca. Every 52 years, the New Fire Ceremony extinguished every flame in the empire, rekindled from a single bonfire to prevent the end of the world.

At a glance

Mayahuel (written in normalized classical Nahuatl as Mayāhuel) is the venerable Mesoamerican goddess of the maguey (metl, the plant Agave americana and related varieties), of plant fertility, of nourishing abundance, and of the sacred sap (aguamiel) from which pulque (octli) is made. Wife of Patécatl (the lord of medicinal roots) and mother of the Centzon Totochtin ('The Four Hundred Rabbits', personifications of sacred intoxication and rural exuberance), Mayahuel is described in sixteenth-century sources both as the first historical woman who discovered how to pierce the agave trunk to collect its translucent sap, and as a celestial maiden whose sacrificed body was buried to sprout the first maguey plant on earth. Depicted in the divinatory codices seated upon a green agave or displaying multiple breasts that nourish her divine offspring, the goddess presided over the eighth day sign (Tochtli, 'Rabbit') in the ritual calendar tonalpohualli and embodied the many subsistence resources provided by the agave: textile fibers for weaving (ixtli), thorns for blood penance, and sacred drink for religious ceremonies.

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

Sacred symbols

The agave plant, the four hundred breasts, the bowl of pulque and the turtle

Family

Mayahuel

Unions

Patecatl

Children

Centzon Totochtin (Four Hundred Pulque Rabbits)

Genealogy according to Olmos/Thevet (Histoyre du Mechique, VI); Sahagún (CF 1.22); Códices Borgia (8, 68), Magliabechiano (58r) e Rios (20v)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

André Thevet (attributed to Friar Andrés de Olmos), Histoyre du Mechique (text in Old French of the 16th century). translation: Critical edition by Édouard de Jonghe (JSA, Paris, new series, vol. 2, no. 1, 1905, pp. 1-41). read
Friar Bernardino de Sahagún (School of Tlatelolco), Florentine Codex: Book I (The Indigenous Pantheon, ch. 22) and Book II (Agricultural Rites). translation: Annotated English version by C. E. Dibble and A. J. O. Anderson (The Gods, Univ. of Utah / School of American Research, Santa Fe, 1970). read
Tlacuilo Painters of Anáhuac, Codex Borgia (Plates 8, 12 and 68: The Goddess in the Maguey). translation: Facsimile and analysis by Eduard Seler (vol. I, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1963). read
Anonymous Painters of Tlatelolco, Codex Magliabechiano (folio 58r: Mayahuel and the Maguey). translation: Facsimile edition commented by Elizabeth Hill Boone (The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1983). read

Studies

H. B. Nicholson, The Religious System of Central Mexico (Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 10). Ed. Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal, Univ. of Texas Press, Austin, 1971. open
Oswaldo G. de Lima (Chemical and Historical Research), El maguey y el pulque en los códices mexicanos (Classic monograph of the FCE). FCE, México-Buenos Aires, 1956. open
Karl A. Nowotny, Tlacuilolli: Die mexikanischen Bilderhandschriften, Stil und Inhalt. Ibero-Amerikanische Bibliothek, Monumenta Americana III, Berlim; trad. Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2005, 1961. open
Patricia Rieff Anawalt, Indian Clothing Before Cortes: Mesoamerican Costumes from the Codices. The Civilization of the American Indian Series, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1981. open

Name and epithets

The etymology of the theonym Mayāhuel is the subject of rich philological debate among specialists in the Nahuatl language.

In the ancient sources

Histoyre du Mechique (Frei Andrés de Olmos / André Thevet), c. 1543–1558 CE. Contains the foundational narrative of Mayahuel's descent from the sky with Ehécatl-Quetzalcoatl, her dismemberment by the Tzitzimime, and the…

The myths

The Celestial Flight with Ehécatl and the Creation of the Maguey. The cosmogonic myth of the origin of the maguey is transmitted in the Histoyre du Mechique, a colonial work derived from the investigations of Frei André…

Worship and archaeology

The cult of Mayahuel was intrinsically tied to the agricultural economy and to the liturgy of the agave on the Central Mexican Highlands, including the regions of Tlaxcala, Cholula, Tepeapulco and the Valley of Tenochti…

How the god was depicted

In the pre-Hispanic pictographic manuscripts, Mayahuel is easily identified by her direct physical relationship with the agave plant.

What scholars debate

Historical Origin versus Mythical Personification. Historians of Mesoamerican religions analyze the duality of the narratives about Mayahuel in the works of Sahagún in contrast with the Histoyre du Mechique.

After antiquity

In Mexican culture and in the history of American agriculture, Mayahuel remains the supreme symbol of the millennial culture of the maguey and of pulque, widely celebrated in artistic murals (notably by Diego Rivera in…

Did you know?

The maguey was known among the ancient Nahuas as the 'tree of wonders' (nexquimilli), for it provided a roof with its hard rosettes, paper for writing, needles from its thorns, cloth from its fibers, and food from its r…

Codex relic

The Four Hundred Breasts. The countless breasts with which she nurses her divine children and makes the maguey's intoxicating sap flow.

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