Coatlicue

Coatlicue swept the temple at Coatepec. While she worked, she found a ball of hummingbird feathers. She picked it up and tucked it into her clothing. After the feathers entered her clothing, she became pregnant. The story named no human father and gave no account of an ordinary union. Her pregnancy followed directly from the strange object that she had found while sweeping.

The child was Huitzilopochtli, the warrior god associated with the sun. Coatlicue was also called Teteoinan, the Mother of the Gods, and the Lady of the Snake Skirts. Her place in the story joined birth with death. She carried divine life within her, while her other associations connected her with the taking of life. In this account, however, the story centred on the feathers, the pregnancy, and the child who came from them.

The feather ball brought Huitzilopochtli into Coatlicue’s body without a named human father. His conception began the story of his place among the gods. In another telling, Ometeotl produced Huitzilopochtli as one of four divine sons after mating with himself. The two tellings gave the god different births. The Coatepec story began when Coatlicue found the hummingbird feathers and became pregnant with him.