| Tonacacihuatl | |
|---|---|
Goddess of the Creation[1] | |
 Tōnacācihuātl as depicted in theCodex Telleriano-Remensis | |
| Other names | Ometeotl, Omecihuatl, Citlalcueitl |
| Abode | Omeyocan (Thirteenth Heaven)[1] |
| Gender | Female |
| Region | Mesoamerica |
| Ethnic group | Aztec,Tlaxcaltec,Toltec (Nahoa) |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | None (self-created) |
| Siblings | None |
| Consort | Tonacatecuhtli (Codex Zumarraga) |
| Children | • With Ometecuhtli:Xipe-Totec,Tezcatlipoca,Quetzalcoatl,Huitzilopochtli (Codex Zumarraga)[1] • By fecund action: the 1,600 godsNauhtzonteteo (Tecpatl)[2] |
InAztec mythology,Tōnacācihuātl (Nahuatl pronunciation:[toːnakaːˈsiwaːt͡ɬ]) was a creator and goddess of fertility, worshiped for peopling the earth and making it fruitful.[3] Most Colonial-era manuscripts equate her withŌmecihuātl.[4]Tōnacācihuātl was the consort ofTōnacātēcuhtli.[5] She is also referred to as Ilhuicacihuātl or "Heavenly Lady."[6]
Tonacacihuatl is depicted in theCodex Telleriano-Remensis.[7]
The god's name is a compound of twoNahuatl words:tōnacā andcihuātl.[8] Whilecihuātl can be translated "woman" or "lady",tōnacā presents several possible interpretations. Some read this root astonacā (without the long 'o'), consisting ofnacatl, meaning "human flesh" or "food", with the possessive prefixto ("our"). By this etymology,Tōnacācihuātl would mean "Lady of Our Food" or "Lady of Our Flesh", most commonly rendered "Lady of Our Sustenance."[4] The wordtōnac simply means "abundance", givingTōnacācihuātl the alternate reading "Lady of Abundance."[8]
Tōnacācihuātl was the Central Mexican form of the creator goddess common to Mesoamerican religions.[4] According to theCodex Ríos, theHistory of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, theHistoyre du Mechique, and theFlorentine Codex,Tōnacācihuātl and her counterpartTōnacātēcuhtli resided inŌmeyōcān, the 13th, highest heaven, from which human souls descended to earth.[9][4][6]Tōnacācihuātl is associated with procreation, appearing in pre-Columbian art near copulating humans. In theFlorentine Codex,Sahagún relates that Aztec midwives would tell newborns after bathing them, "You were created in the place of duality, the place above the nine heavens. Your mother and father—Ōmetēuctli andŌmecihuātl, the heavenly lady—formed you, created you."[6]
In 1629,Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón also reported the use of the goddess's name in ritual planting prayers, in which a seed of corn is entrusted to the earth deityTlaltecuhtli by a shaman who calls the kernelnohueltiuh Tōnacācihuātl ("my sister, the Lady of Abundance").[10]
In theCodex Chimalpopoca,Tōnacātēcuhtli andTōnacācihuātl are listed as one of several pairs of gods to whomQuetzalcoatl prays.[11]
Ometecuhtli andOmecihuatl, orTonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl govern the divine nature divided into two gods (it is convenient to know man and woman; the man, who created and governed everything that is of the masculine gender and the woman everything that belonged to the feminine gender). Omecihuatl, for her part, gave birth to many children on theThirteen Heavens with Ometecuhtli, and after all these births she had given birth to a flint, which in their language they calltecpatl, from which the other gods were amazed and frightened, their children agreed to throw it out of the heavens to the said flint, and thus they put into action, and that it fell in a certain part of the earth, calledChicomoztoc, which means 'Seven Caves', and that then one thousand and six hundredgods andgoddesses came out of it, the Nauhtzonteteo that spread over the face of the earth, the sea, the underworld, and the heavens.[12]
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