Mayahuel - The Aztec Goddess of Maguey

Mayahuel - The Aztec Goddess of Maguey Mayahuel was the Aztec goddess of maguey or (Agave History of the U.S), a prickly plant local to Mexico, and the goddess of pulque, a mixed beverage produced using agave juices. She is one of a few goddesses who ensure and bolster ripeness in its diverse guises.â Key Takeaways: Mayahuel Exchange Names: NoneEquivalents: 11 Serpent (post-great Mixtec)Epithets: The Woman of 400 BreastsCulture/Country: Aztec, Post-exemplary MexicoPrimary Sources: Bernadino Sahagun, Diego Duran, a few codices, particularly the Codex MagliabechianoRealms and Powers: Maguey, pulque, inebriation, fruitfulness, revitalizationFamily: The Tzitzimime (ground-breaking ruinous divine creatures who epitomized imaginative forces), Teteoinan (Mother of the Gods), Toci (Our Grandmother) and the Centzon Totochtin (400 Rabbits, Mayahuels youngsters) Mayahuel in Aztec Mythologyâ Mayahuel was one of a few Aztec divine beings and goddesses of richness, every one of whom had explicit jobs. She was the goddess of maguey, and supporter of the 13-day celebration (trecena) in the Aztec schedule that begins with 1 Malinalli (grass), a period of abundances and an absence of moderation.â Mayahuel was known as â€Å"the lady of the 400 breasts,† most likely a reference to the numerous sprouts and leaves of maguey and the smooth juice delivered by the plant and changed into pulque. The goddess is regularly portrayed with full bosoms or breastfeeding, or with numerous bosoms to take care of her numerous kids, the Centzon Totochtin or â€Å"the 400 rabbits,† who were the divine beings related with the impacts of extreme drinking.â Appearance and Reputation In the current Aztec codices, Mayahuel is portrayed as a young lady with different bosoms, rising up out of a maguey plant, holding cups with frothing pulque. In the Codex Borbonicus, she wears blue garments (the shade of fruitfulness), and a hood of axles and unspun maguey fiber (ixtle). The axles represent the change or rejuvenation of confusion into order.â The Bilimek Pulque Vessel is a bit of cut dull green phyllite totally shrouded in complex iconographic signs, and in the assortments of the Welt Museum in Vienna, Austria. Made in the mid 1500s, the container has an enormous head anticipating out from the side of the jar that has been deciphered as the day sign Malinalli 1, the primary day of Mayahuels celebration. On the opposite side, Mayahuel is shown as executed with two floods of aquamiel spurting out from her bosoms and into a pulque pot below.â Other related pictures incorporate a stele from the extraordinary great time frame pyramid of Teotihuacan dated between 500â€900 CE which shows scenes from a wedding with visitors drinking pulque. A stone artwork at the postclassic Aztec site of Ixtapantongo shows Mayahuel ascending from a maguey plant, holding a gourd in either hand. Her head is delegated with the leader of a fledgling and a feathered hat. Before her is a pulque god and Pantecal, the dad of her 400 children.â The Myth of the Invention of Pulque As per the Aztec fantasy, the god Quezalcoatl chose to give people a unique beverage to celebrate and eat and gave them pulque. He sent Mayahuel, goddess of maguey, to the earth and afterward combined with her. To maintain a strategic distance from the wrath of her grandma and her different fierce family members the goddesses Tzitzimime, Quetzalcoatl and Mayahuel changed themselves into a tree, however they were discovered and Mayahuel was slaughtered. Quetzalcoatl gathered the bones of the goddess and covered them, and in that spot developed the principal plant of maguey. Therefore, it was felt that the sweet sap, the aguamiel, gathered from the plant was the blood of the goddess. An alternate form of the fantasy tells that Mayahuel was a human lady who found how to gather aquamiel (the fluid), and her significant other Pantecalt found how to make pulque. Sources Garnett, W. The Paintings at Tetitla, Atetelco and Ixtapantongo. Artes de Mã ©xico 3 (1954): 78â€80. Print.Kroger, Joseph and Patrizia Granziera. Aztec Goddesses and Christian Madonnas: Images of the Divine Feminine in Mexico. Ashgate Publishing, 2012.Milbrath, Susan. Beheaded Lunar Goddesses in Aztec Art, Myth, and Ritual. Antiquated Mesoamerica 8.2 (1997): 185â€206. Print.Miller, Mary, and Karl Taube. The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames Hudson, 1993.Taube, Karl. Las Origines del Pulque. Arqueologia Mexicana 7 (1996) :71. The Bilimek Pulque Vessel: Starlore, Calendrics, and Cosmology of Late Postclassic Central Mexico. Old Mesoamerica 4.1 (1993): 1â€15.