METZTLI

METZTLI

"The searchers had found the place only because of the chanting and the final cry. It had been close to five that morning, and after an all-night encampment the party had begun to pack up for its empty-handed return to the mines. Then somebody had heard faint rhythms in the distance, and knew that one of the noxious old native rituals was being howled from some lonely spot up the slope of the corpse-shaped mountain. They heard the same old names—Mictlanteuctli, Tonatiuh-Metzli, Cthulhutl, Ya-R’lyeh, and all the rest—but the queer thing was that some English words were mixed with them."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Electric Executioner

"The Aztec goddess named 'golden bells' was among Coatlicue's children, who tried to kill their mother rather than let her bear rivals to them. Coyolxauhqui tried to warn her mother, so her siblings decapitated her and threw her head into the night sky.  A grieving Coatlicue place Coyolxauhqui's shining head in the night sky. Coyolxauhuqui may have descended from the older moon goddess Metztli, who had two phases: One that promoted growth, another that discouraged it."

Patricia Monaghan, Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines

"From that day forward, Metztli, the moon, was forever dimmer than the sun, his face permanently marked with the imprint of the rabbit, visible in pattern of light and dark patches on the full moon. Metztli was sometimes portrayed as a goddess rather than a god, and though she controlled fertility, she also represented night, dampness, and cold."

Tamra Andrews, Dictionary Of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky

"The dying Coatlicue gave birth to Huitzilopochtli, who, armed with his xiuhcoatl weapon, dismembered Coyolxauhqui and routed the Centzon Huitznahua at the hill of Coatepec."

Mary Miller & Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols Of Ancient Mexico And The Maya