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Mexico Rising: The Gods Are Alive 37
PB July 2011
once pointed out that the skulls around Mother
Kali’s neck seem to be smiling. The skulls also
symbolize our egos. When Mother cuts our ego,
all tension is gone. Mother Kali wears a skirt of
severed arms that represent our actions. While
we are entitled to work, the result of our work
belongs to her.
The middle portion of Coatlicue’s body, from
her skirt down to her feet, represents the underworld.
Her feet are eagle claws that can dig into
the earth and aid in agriculture. Underneath her
serpent skirt, out of the maternal uterus, comes
a serpent giving birth to the sun god named
Huitzilopochtli.
According to the legend, Coatlicue was
sweeping on top of Coatepec, a mountain of
serpents, when she found a package of feathers.
She hid the feathers under her skirt and shortly
after found that she was pregnant with Huitzilopochtli.
Her daughter, the moon, and her sons,
the four hundred stars of the south became jealous
and decapitated her. But she did not die
because Huitzilopochtli protected her. Born a
fully-grown man in a magical birth, Huitzilopochtli
in warrior mode decapitated Coyolxauhqui,
the moon, and cut off her arms and
legs—hence the moon is round. ‘The sun takes
over the moon in order to give life to Mother
Earth,’ said Angel. ‘Light overcomes darkness.’
Angel took me behind the statue of Coatlicue
and pointed to a stone leaning against the pedestal
the goddess stands on. This stone, which
encompasses the soles of Coatlicue’s feet, depicts
a fourth universal plane—heaven and earth, and
the underworld being the other three. It depicts
the union of Tlaloc, the god of water and rain,
and Tlaltecutli, a sea serpent that is an embodiment
of raging chaos before creation. Between
them a round shield and a square within portrays
the earth with its four cardinal points of
north, south, east, and west. The earth—also represented
by Tlali, Chimalma, and Tonantzin—is
shown within as a circle.
‘Long before Europeans, the ancient people
of Mexico had the knowledge that the earth was
round,’ said Angel.
I asked, ‘What happened? Why do people in
Mexico no longer worship Coatlicue?’
‘We’ve passed through a transition from a
pre-Hispanic to the modern era,’ said Angel.
‘After Coatlicue, the mother of Aztec gods, came
Chimalma, the circular earth; then Tonantzin,
mother of gods and humans; and then the Virgin
of Guadalupe.’
I was busy taking photographs of Coatlicue.
The museum kindly allows photography provided
one does not use flash. When I turned
around, Angel was gone. He was gone so
abruptly that I questioned in my mind whether
he was real or not. Was he a physical form of the
voice in my head I heard in the morning? He
came quickly, gave me wise explanations, and
then he was gone. I would have liked to ask him
more about the goddess Tonantzin, who used to
be worshipped on the hill of Tepeyac where Our
Lady of Guadalupe first appeared.
Although I had the best intentions to go
straight to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
fate had other plans. I was taken outside
Mexico City to Teotihuacan, a vast archaeological
site with a soaring sun pyramid and a
huge moon pyramid linked by the wide Avenue
of the Dead. Some scholars estimate that this
city may have been established around 100 bce
and that by the fourth century some 200,000
people lived there. The city covers nearly eight
square miles and was larger and more advanced
than any European city of the time.
Still, to this day, Teotihuacan is shrouded in
mystery, and nobody truly knows who founded
this city—be they the Totonacs, Otomi, Zapotec,
Mixtec, Maya, or Nahua peoples. Archaeologists
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