Cōātlīcue

Coatlicue, ‘Skirt of Snakes’, also called Teteoh Innan, ‘Mother of the Gods’, was the Aztec mother goddess and wife of Mixcoatl. Toci, ‘Our Grandmother’, and Cihuacoatl, patron of women who died in childbirth, were seen as aspects of her.

In the myth of Coatepec, near Tula, she became pregnant when a ball of feathers touched her as she swept. Her daughter Coyolxauhqui and four hundred sons plotted to kill her, but Huitzilopochtli leapt from her womb in full armour and routed them.