⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-17 - Repairs are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

Coatlicue.

Headword: 
Coatlicue.
Principal English Translation: 

a deity; "Snakes-Her-Skirt" was a goddess of the earth and of fertility, possibly also called Iztac Cihuatl (White Woman); the mother of Huitzilopochtli was also called Coatlicue

Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 106.

Orthographic Variants: 
Coatlan tonan
Attestations from sources in English: 

auh in Vitzilobuchtli: no mjtoaia tetzavitl, ichica ca ҫan jvitl, in temoc injc otztic in jnan in coacue: caiac nez in ita = And Uitzilopochtli was also known as an omen of evil; because from only a feather which fell, his mother Coatl icue conceived. For no one came forth as his father (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, Part IV, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1978), 5.

Coatl icue: innan centzonuitznaoa. auh inveltiuh, itoca, Coiolxauh = Coatl icue, mother of the Centzonuitznaua. And their elder sister was named Coyolxauhqui. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, Part IV, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1978), 1.

auh in iehoatl coatl icue, vncan tlamaceoaia, tlachpanaia, quimocuitlaviaia, in tlachpanalli = And this Coatl icue performed penances there; she swept; she was charged with the sweeping. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, Part IV, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1978), 1.oc cenca iehoanti qujmauiztiliaia in coateca, in coatlan calpulli itech pouja: qujtlamanjlia yn inteouh, itoca coatl ycue, coatlan tona = Especially the Coateca, they who belonged to the district of Coatlan, esteemed [these tamales]. They offered them to their god[dess], called Coatl icue or Coatlan tonan. (16th century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 55.