Coatlicue

Coatlicue
Primordial earth goddess, mother of the gods, the sun, the moon and the stars
Statue of Coatlicue displayed in the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City
Other names	Tēteoh īnnan “the gods, their mother”, Ilamatēuctli “old mistress”, Tonāntzin “our mother”, “our grandmother”, Cōzcamiyāuh “corn tassel necklace”, Cihuācōātl “snake woman”, Cōātlāntonān “our mother of Coatlan”
Children	Many gods and goddesses, foremost among them Huitzilopochtli, Coyolxauhqui and the centzonhuitznāhua

Coatlicue (/kwɑːtˈliːkweɪ/; Classical Nahuatl: cōātl īcue, Nahuatl pronunciation: [koːaːˈtɬíːkʷe], “skirt of snakes”), also known as Teteoh innan (Classical Nahuatl: tēteoh īnnān, pronounced [teːˌtéoʔ ˈíːnːaːn̥], “mother of the gods”), is the Aztec goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and war. The goddesses “our grandmother”, and Cihuacoatl “snake woman”, the patron of women who die in childbirth, were also seen as aspects of Coatlicue.

The goddess' Classical Nahuatl name can be rendered both Cōātlīcue and Cōātl īcue, from “snake” and “her skirt”, roughly meaning “[she who has] the skirt of snakes”. The name Tēteoh īnnān, from , plural of “god”, + “their mother”, refers directly to her maternal role as a primordial earth goddess.

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 with claws and her breasts are depicted as hanging flaccid from pregnancy. Her face is formed by two facing serpents (after her head was cut off and the blood spurt forth from her neck in the form of two gigantic serpents), referring to the myth that she was sacrificed during the beginning of the present creation.