Mexico

  • Huixtocihuatl-  Goddess of Salt

    Salt has been a source of wealth since ancient times.  The human body must have some form of salt to survive and before the advent of refrigeration it was one of the main ways to preserve food.  Salt was associated with sex and fertility as well for some reason, which has proved fodder for psychoanalysts.  So as a source of wealth and sex, it is natural salt had its own deity.  The Aztecs were no exception. Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who was patron of salt and salt waters.  She was also the patroness of salt making and the discoverer of salt itself.  Huixtocihuatl was the older sister of the…

  • More Magic Beans- This History of Chocolate

    That most delicious of desserts that we all crave.  It was rightly named as “food of the gods” by the ancients.  However, the chocolate the pre-Olmec cultures were making was nothing like the chocolate we eat today.  It was consumed as a beverage, and was quite bitter.  The peoples making this drink were living in Mesoamerica prior to the cultures of the Olmecs, Mayan and Aztecs.  Anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania have found cacao residue on pottery found in Honduras from as early as 1400 BCE.  Some sources place the discovery of chocolate even earlier at 1900 BCE.  Anthropologists surmise native peoples found the cacao plants in the tropical…

  • Coatlicule

    Coatlicule (Co-at-li-cu-e) or ‘Serpent Skirt’ was a major deity in Aztec mythology and is regarded as the earth-mother goddess. She was the patron of childbirth, was associated with warfare, governance and agriculture, and considered the female aspect of the primordial god Ometeotl. She gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and war. The goddesses Tocih “our grandmother”, and Cihuacoatl “snake woman”, the patron of women who die in childbirth, were also seen as aspects of Coatlicue. She is represented as a woman wearing a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands, and skulls. Her feet and hands are adorned…

  • La Malinche- Scarlet Woman or Maligned Heroine

    Malinalli, Malintzin, Dona Marina or La Malinche.  These are all names for a woman born into the heart of turbulent times.  She was born sometime between 1496 and 1501 in an area between the Aztec ruled Valley of Mexico and the Mayan states of the Yucatan Peninsula.  She was a member of a noble family as her father was a chief.  Unfortunately, he died when Malintzin was very young and at the urging of her new husband, Malintzin’s mother sold her into slavery.  Bernal Diaz del Castillo in his book The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico reports the family faked the young girl’s death upon the birth of her half…

  • Montezuma II

    Montezuma II, also seen as Moctezuma, was the ninth Aztec emperor of Mexico who is best known for his confrontation with Hernan Cortez. Most information on Montezuma revolves around his befriending and eventual betrayal by Cortez, which some believe is the reason that the Aztec empire fell only 2 years after thier chance meeting. What is more interesting about Montezuma though is his lifestyle outside of his kingly duties. Living in a palace in the capital city of Tenochtitlan (modern day Mexico City), Montezuma enjoyed a lavish lifestyle that rivaled that of Rome. The palace itself was not only enormous, it was decorated with hanging gardens, weapons embellished with gold…