Dictionary Of Gods -8.x

God's and Goddesses from different cultures around the world.

Excerpt:

AZTEC

CHALCHIHUITLCUE Lady Precious Green, wife of Tlaloc. Goddess of storms and water. Personification of youthful beauty, vitality and violence. In some illustrations she is shown holding the head of Tlazolteotl, the goddess of the witches, between her legs. Chalchihuitlcue is the whirlpool, the wind on the waters, all young and growing things, the beginning of life and creation.

COATLICUE Earth monster. In the darkness and chaos before the Creation, the female Earth Monster swam in the waters of the earth devouring all that she saw. Wehn the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca decided to impose form upon the Earth, they changed themselves into serpents and struggled with the Earth Monster until they broke her in two. Coatlicue's lower part then rose to form the heavens and her upper part descended to form the earth. Coatlicue has an endless, ravenous appetite for human hearts and will not bear fruit unless given human blood.

CINTEOTL The corn god, the giver of food, god of fertility and regeneration. Cinteotl is protected by the rain gods Tlaloc and Chalchihuitlcue.

EUEUCOYOTL The Old, Old Coyote. Associated with gaiety and sex. A god of spontaneity, of ostentatious ornament, of unexpected pleasure and sorrow. A trickster and troublemaker. Considered unlucky.

HUITZILOPOCHTLI God of war, son of Coatlicue. Principal god of the Aztecs. When Coatlicue became pregnant with Huitzilopochtli, her daughter Coyolxauhqui incited her brothers, the Centzon Huitznahua (the Four Hundred Stars) to destroy Coatlicue, because her pregnancy brought disgrace on the family. Still in the womb, Huitzilopochtli swore to defend his mother and immediately on being born put on battle armor and war paint. After defeating the Four Hundred Stars, Huitzilopochtli slew his sister and cast her down the hill at Templo Mayor where her body broke to pieces on striking the bottom. Priests at Templo Mayor killed prisoners in the same way, these sacrifices being replicas of mythical events designed to keep the daily battle between day and night and the birth of the God of War ever in the minds of the people. Often considered synonomous with QUETZALCOATL.

ITZCOLIUHQUI The Twisted Obsidian One, the God of the Curved Obsidian Blade. God of darkness and destruction. Blinded and cast down from the heavens, Itzcoliuhqui strikes out randomly at his victims.

ITZPAPALOTL Obsidian Butterfly. Beautiful, demonic, armed with the claws of a jaguar. The female counterpart of Itzcoliuhq