Coatlicue, also known as Teteoinan (also transcribed Teteo Inan) ("The Mother of Gods"), is the Aztec goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and war. She is also known as Toci ("our grandmother") and Cihuacoatl ("the lady of the serpent"), the patron of women who die in childbirth. Image File history File linksMetadata Coatlicue. ... Front entrance to the museum. ... Nickname: Location of Mexico City in central Mexico Coordinates: Country Mexico Federal entity Federal District Boroughs The 16 delegaciones Founded (as Tenochtitlan) c. ... The Aztec civilization recognized many gods and supernatural creatures. ... A pictorial representation of Huitzilopochtli from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e História, México In Aztec mythology, Huitzilopochtli, also spelled Uitzilopochtli, (IPA: (Hummingbird of the South, He of the South, Hummingbird on the Left (South), or Left-Handed Humming Bird – huitzil is the Nahuatl word for hummingbird... In Aztec mythology, Cihuacoatl (snake woman; also Chihucoatl, Ciucoatl) was a fertility goddess and patron of mothers, particularly women who died in childbirth. ...

The word "Coatlicue" is Nahuatl for "the one with the skirt of serpents". She is referred to variously by the epithets "Mother Goddess of the Earth who gives birth to all celestial things", "Goddess of Fire and Fertility", "Goddess of Life, Death and Rebirth", and "Mother of the Southern Stars". Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... An epithet (Greek - επιθετον and Latin - epitheton; literally meaning imposed) is a descriptive word or phrase. ...

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 (for digging graves) and her breasts are depicted as hanging flaccid from nursing. Coatlicue keeps on her chest the hands, hearts and skulls of her children so they can be purified in their mother's chest. Serpent is a word of Latin origin (serpens, serpentis) which is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit term serp, that is normally substituted for snake in a specifically mythic or religious context, in order to distinguish such creatures from the field of biology. ... Breastfeeding an infant Symbol for breastfeeding (Matt Daigle, Mothering magazine contest winner 2006) Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with milk from a womans breasts. ...

Most Aztec artistic representations of this goddess emphasize her deadly side, because Earth, as well as loving mother, is the insatiable monster that consumes everything that lives. She represents the devouring mother, in whom both the womb and the grave exist.

According to Aztec legend, she was once magically impregnated by a ball of feathers that fell on her while she was sweeping a temple, and subsequently gave birth to the gods Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl. Her daughter Coyolxauhqui then rallied Coatlicue's four hundred other children together and goaded them into attacking and decaptitating their mother. The instant she was killed, the god Huitzilopochtli suddenly emerged from her womb fully grown and armed for battle. He killed many of his brothers and sisters, including Coyolxauhqui, whose head he cut off and threw into the sky to become the moon. In one variation on this legend, Huitzilopochtli himself is the child conceived in the ball-of-feathers incident and is born just in time to save his mother from harm. It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles. ... In Aztec mythology, (and among the Toltecs), Xolotl was the god of lightning and the one who aided the dead on their journey to Mictlan. ... In Aztec mythology, Coyolxauhqui (golden bells more correctly: She with the bells on her cheeks Consider the orbiting full moon and the stone carvings facial details. ... A pictorial representation of Huitzilopochtli from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e História, México In Aztec mythology, Huitzilopochtli, also spelled Uitzilopochtli, (IPA: (Hummingbird of the South, He of the South, Hummingbird on the Left (South), or Left-Handed Humming Bird – huitzil is the Nahuatl word for hummingbird... Apparent magnitude: up to -12. ...

A massive sculpture known as the Coatlicue Stone was discovered by the astronomer Antonio de León y Gama in August of 1790 after an urban redevelopment program uncovered artifacts. Six months later, the team discovered the massive Aztec sun stone. De León y Gama's account of the discoveries was the first archeological work on Pre-Columbian Mexico. A giant Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant Astronomy is the science of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earths atmosphere (such as auroras and cosmic background radiation). ... Original stone on display in the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology and History. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Some claim the Spanish colonizers of Mexico used her as a template for the Virgen de Guadalupe.^{[citation needed]} Our Lady of Guadalupe Our Lady of Guadalupe or the Virgin of Guadalupe is a Roman Catholic icon and arguably Mexicos most popular image: Nobel laureate Octavio Paz is quoted as saying that the Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin...

In popular culture

• Coatlicue is Monster in My Pocket #16. She appears in the Oriental garden, stage 5 of the video game, rushing toward her opponent when unseen, slowly backing away when seen.
• In the video game Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Coatlicue is one of many multi-elemental summons in the game. She is referred to as the Goddess Bearing the Water of Life. Unusually, she is the only summon who does not have an attack, but rather heals the party and restores their HP after each round for several rounds after.
• In the anime television series Zegapain, Coatlicue is a nickname of the mecha Santico.
• The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is recognized to be dressed in Coatlicue-fashion, because of the black girth she wears.