{{Short description|Central deity in Aztec religion}} {{Infobox deity | type = Aztec | name = Tonacacihuatl | image = Tonacacihuatl TellerianoRemensis.jpg | alt = | caption = Tōnacācihuātl as depicted in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis | god_of = Goddess of the Creation<ref name="NahoaMythology"/> | other_names = Ometeotl, Omecihuatl, Citlalcueitl | member_of = | abode = Omeyocan (Thirteenth Heaven)<ref name="NahoaMythology"/> | symbol = | parents = None (self-created) | siblings = None | consort = Tonacatecuhtli (Codex Zumarraga) | children = • With Ometecuhtli: Xipe-Totec, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli (Codex Zumarraga)<ref name="NahoaMythology">{{cite book|author=Cecilio A. Robelo|title=Diccionario de Mitología Nahoa [Nahoa Mythology Dictionary]|url=|date=1905|publisher=Editorial Porrúa|isbn=970-07-3149-9|language=spanish}}</ref><br/>• By fecund action: the 1,600 gods Nauhtzonteteo (Tecpatl)<ref>{{cite book|author=Cecilio A. Robelo|title=Diccionario de Mitología Nahoa [Nahoa Mythology Dictionary]|url=|date=1905|publisher=Editorial Porrúa|isbn=970-07-3149-9|language=spanish|page=122}}</ref> | gender = Female | region = Mesoamerica | ethnic_group = Aztec, Tlaxcaltec, Toltec (Nahoa) | festivals = }} In Aztec mythology, '''{{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}}''' ({{IPA|nah|toːnakaːˈsiwaːt͡ɬ}}) was a creator and goddess of fertility, worshiped for peopling the earth and making it fruitful.{{sfn|Hale|1897|p=122}} Most Colonial-era manuscripts equate her with {{lang|nci|Ōmecihuātl|italic=no}}.{{sfn|Miller & Taube}} {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} was the consort of {{lang|nci|Tōnacātēcuhtli|italic=no}}.{{sfn|León-Portilla}} She is also referred to as Ilhuicacihuātl or "Heavenly Lady."{{sfn|Sahagún book 6}}
Tonacacihuatl is depicted in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis.<ref name="tonaca">{{cite book|author=Bodo Spranz|title=Los Dioses en los Codices Mexicanos del Grupo Borgia: Tonacacihuatl-Tonacatecuhtli [The Gods in the Mexican Codices of the Borgia Group: Tonacacihuatl-Tonacatecuhtli]|url=|language=spanish|date=1964|publisher=Fondo de Cultura Económica|isbn=968-16-1029-6|pages=285–315}}</ref>
[[File:Tonacacihuatl Tonacatecuhtli Fejevary-Mayer.jpg|thumb|Tonacacíhuatl and Tonacatecuhtli as depicted in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.<ref name="tonaca"/>]]
==Etymology== The god's name is a compound of two Nahuatl words: {{lang|nci|tōnacā}} and {{lang|nci|cihuātl}}.{{sfn|Dictionnaire}} While {{lang|nci|cihuātl}} can be translated "woman" or "lady", {{lang|nci|tōnacā}} presents several possible interpretations. Some read this root as {{lang|nci|tonacā}} (without the long 'o'), consisting of {{lang|nci|nacatl}}, meaning "human flesh" or "food", with the possessive prefix {{lang|nci|to}} ("our"). By this etymology, {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} would mean "Lady of Our Food" or "Lady of Our Flesh", most commonly rendered "Lady of Our Sustenance."{{sfn|Miller & Taube}} The word {{lang|nci|tōnac}} simply means "abundance", giving {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} the alternate reading "Lady of Abundance."{{sfn|Dictionnaire}}
==Origin and role== {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} was the Central Mexican form of the creator goddess common to Mesoamerican religions.{{sfn|Miller & Taube}} According to the ''Codex Ríos'', the ''History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings'', the {{lang|frm|Histoyre du Mechique}}, and the ''Florentine Codex'', {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} and her counterpart {{lang|nci|Tōnacātēcuhtli|italic=no}} resided in {{lang|nci|Ōmeyōcān}}, the 13th, highest heaven, from which human souls descended to earth.{{sfn|Garibay}}{{sfn|Miller & Taube}}{{sfn|Sahagún book 6}} {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} is associated with procreation, appearing in pre-Columbian art near copulating humans. In the ''Florentine Codex'', {{lang|es|Sahagún|italic=no}} relates that Aztec midwives would tell newborns after bathing them, "You were created in the place of duality, the place above the nine heavens. Your mother and father—{{lang|nci|Ōmetēuctli|italic=no}} and {{lang|nci|Ōmecihuātl|italic=no}}, the heavenly lady—formed you, created you."{{sfn|Sahagún book 6}}
In 1629, {{lang|es|Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón|italic=no}} also reported the use of the goddess's name in ritual planting prayers, in which a seed of corn is entrusted to the earth deity {{lang|nci|Tlaltecuhtli|italic=no}} by a shaman who calls the kernel {{lang|nci|nohueltiuh Tōnacācihuātl}} ("my sister, the Lady of Abundance").{{sfn|Ruiz de Alarcón}}
In the ''Codex Chimalpopoca'', {{lang|nci|Tōnacātēcuhtli|italic=no}} and {{lang|nci|Tōnacācihuātl|italic=no}} are listed as one of several pairs of gods to whom Quetzalcoatl prays.{{sfn|Bierhorst}}
== Nauhtzonteteo == Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, or Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl govern the divine nature divided into two gods (it is convenient to know man and woman; the man, who created and governed everything that is of the masculine gender and the woman everything that belonged to the feminine gender). Omecihuatl, for her part, gave birth to many children on the Thirteen Heavens with Ometecuhtli, and after all these births she had given birth to a flint, which in their language they call tecpatl, from which the other gods were amazed and frightened, their children agreed to throw it out of the heavens to the said flint, and thus they put into action, and that it fell in a certain part of the earth, called Chicomoztoc, which means 'Seven Caves', and that then one thousand and six hundred gods and goddesses came out of it, the Nauhtzonteteo that spread over the face of the earth, the sea, the underworld, and the heavens.<ref>{{cite book|author=Juan De Torquemada|title=Monarquía Indiana [Indian Monarchy]|date=1986|publisher=Editorial Porrúa|isbn=9789680863556|language=spanish|page=68}}</ref>
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== {{refbegin|indent=yes}}<!--BEGIN biblio format. --> *{{cite book |last=Bierhorst |first=John |year=1992 |title=History and mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca |publisher=University of Arizona Press |location=Tucson, AZ |isbn=978-0-8165-1886-9 |ref={{sfnref|Bierhorst}} }} *{{cite book |editor-last=Garibay Kintana |editor-first=Ángel Ma. |date=1965 |title=Teogonía e historia de los mexicanos: tres opúsculos del siglo xvi |location=Mexico City |publisher=Editorial Porrúa |isbn=9789684323124 |ref={{sfnref|Garibay}} }} * {{cite book |last=Hale |first=Susan |date=1897 |orig-date=1891 |title=Mexico |series=The Story of the Nations |volume=27 |location=London |publisher=T. Fisher Unwin |edition=2nd |url={{GBurl|WB-x0UU0EwgC}} }} *{{cite book|last=León-Portilla|first=Miguel|title=Aztec Thought and Culture|year=1963|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=0806122951|ref={{sfnref|León-Portilla}} }} *{{cite book |editor1-last=Miller |editor1-first=Mary |editor2-last=Taube |editor2-first=Karl |date=1993 |title=An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya |location=London |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=0500279284 |ref={{sfnref|Miller & Taube}} |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780500279281 }} *{{cite book |last=Ruiz de Alarcón |first=Hernando |date=2014 |title=Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres gentílicas que hoy viven entre los indios naturales de esta Nueva España |location=Barcelona |publisher=Linkgua digital |isbn=9788498169607 |ref={{sfnref|Ruiz de Alarcón}} }} *{{cite book |last=Sahagún |first=Bernadino |translator1-last=Dibble |translator1-first=Charles E. |translator2-last=Anderson |translator2-first=Arthur J. O. |date=2012 |title=Florentine Codex Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy |location=Salt Lake City |publisher=University of Utah Press |isbn=978-1607811619|ref={{sfnref|Sahagún book 6}} }} * {{cite web |last=Wimmer |first=Alexis |year=2006 |url=http://sites.estvideo.net/malinal/nahuatl.page.html |title=Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique |format=online version, incorporating reproductions from ''Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine'' [1885], by Rémi Siméon|access-date=2016-04-05 |ref={{sfnref|Dictionnaire}} }} {{refend}}<!-- END biblio format style -->
{{Aztec mythology}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tonacacihuatl}} Category:Aztec goddesses Category:Creator goddesses Category:Aztec fertility goddesses
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