Coatlicue

Coatlicue
Also known as	The Serpent Skirted One
Mate	Yig (consort)
First appearance	The Rattle of Her Smile
Created by	Stanley C. Sargent

Coatlicue, also known as the Serpent Skirted One, is a Great Old One from the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Cthulhu Mythos.

Description

Not much is known about the deity known as Coatlicue, former mate of the Snake God Yig. An enormous creature, she is said to be humanoid in form with a reptilian nature, her head is actually a pair of serpents which face each other, and she wears a skirt created from living snakes, hence her epithet. 

History

In the days that Coatlicue spent with Yig, the pair ruled the crimson cavern of Yoth beneath the subterranean land of K'n-yan where they were venerated by the Serpent People. This arrangement came to an end when the Serpent Men abandoned Yig to instead worship Tsathoggua. The ancient Aztec civilisation, and later Mexican Indians, also worshiped Coatlicue, and the Aztecs created a great statue in her honour which now resides in Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology. 

Behind the Mythos

"Coatlicue" Cōātlīcue ("Snakes Skirt") is a Nahuatl goddess revered by Nahuatl speaking peoples of the region now known as Mexico and other regions further south where that language group was once dominant. There are certain mounds in North America that may have been built by colonisers from Mexico centuries before white settlement.

In real religious belief from the Nahuatl speaking people, Coatlicue is the divine wife of the god Mixcōhuātl. In some regions she is also given the name Tēteoh īnnān, "mother of the gods". To the Aztecs, she was the powerful mother goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huītzilōpōchtli ("Smoking Mirror"), the Aztec sun god and god of war. The cognate goddesses Toci “our grandmother” and Cihuacōātl “snake woman”, the patron of women who die in childbirth, were aspects or avatars of Cōātlīcue.

Appearances

• Rising with Surtsey (1971), by Brian Lumley.

• The Feaster from the Stars (1977), by E. P. Berglund. 

Gallery

Aztec depiction of Snake Skirt