The head of Coyolxauhqui, the Moon Goddess portrayed on this disk, has a very distinctive headdress. The headdress has a petal configuration over large dots that can be considered stars. Over the petals, there are three large stick forms with three feathers on the tips and two doubled formed with only bifurcated forms at the end. She wears large ear spools and triangles underneath.
In this drawing I have compared the head of Coyolxauhqui with the two versions of similar heads found on the Obelisk of Chávin de Huántar in Peru. Even with the different artistic rendition, one Aztec and the other Peruvian, the heads are very similar even to the stand-up feather units over the petal arrangement with several disk-like star circles located below.
Coyolxauhqui has been dismembered. Her arms and her legs are cut off of her body. A knotted double serpent becomes her belt and around each arm and leg there is a fanged monster face with protruding fangs acting as claws tied on with a double serpent rope. The monster face appears to be similar in form to the faces on the base of the caiman at Chávin de Huántar. But the serpents attached to the hands repeat themselves on the Obelisk as illustrated both in the Dresden Codex and the Codex Borgia, Double headed bars held by Maya with wristlets of Dragon heads are also present in Copan, on Stela P and Stela N.Here on the Obelisk of Chávin de Huántar however, the hand/staff has not only the serpent but also the long tail-like hook used in the serpent/maniken scepters found at Yaxchilan and Quiriguá. (Spinden p. 51, 52)
A most interesting part of this disk is its name: Coyolxauhqui. Coyol is
part of a word indicating "the cutting of." "Xauhqui" is "to shave (or cut)
in the ancient manner." "Qui" at the end of a name indicates "las terceras
personas de numero singular y plural." It was explained to me as "the third
person of a triad." The name therefore, should only indicate the event which
occurred: the dismemberment of her body. There appears to be two and
a half star forms on this disk and that is just under Coyolxauhqui's body
from the top of each leg. Coyolxauhqui was the mother of Huitzilopochtli,
it is said. It was from her womb that he was born in full armor, ready to
defend her against his brothers and sisters the stars. If she were a sky
personage, this would be impossible unless the star was a comet which came
from behind the Moon, one silvery night when the stars were in drunken
disorder and flitting around the skies without any regard as to where they
belonged. In spite of this version, it is also known that
Huitzilopochtli was born from a volcano and is illustrated in the Codex
Azcatitlán: glyph for mountain with serpents issuing from it.
On top is Uitzilopochtli, wearing armor of humming bird feathers.
At foot of mountain is temple with glyph of serpent, turquoise surmounted
by feather banner says serpent of turquoise (or fire) was born here.
(Soustelle, (1971) The Four Suns, p. 172) One can dispute this
by saying that Huitzilopochtli was not a star. But then, why are his brothers
and sisters star-forms? And if he were a star-form, how could the Moon be
his sister if he were born from a volcano which issued serpents (of fire)?
Could we be "reading" the myth incorrectly? It could have happened
because Coyolxauhqui was the sister of a (meteorite) "egg", the ball of
feathers (fire) that fell from the sky according to Prescott's version of
this tale. Coyolxauhqui, then, would not be the Moon itself, but only
a reflection of the Moon. As the reflection of the Moon, her image would
have been created by Lake Texcoco situated within the earthen "bowl"
(or "womb"). The two avatars then would be the twin star-forms shown
on the Moon disk: Huitzilopochtli, an avatar of the (setting) Sun God
(also known as Xolotl, the dog who saved the sun by entering the underworld)
and Quetzalcoatl, the God of the Setting Sun himself.
(LaRouse, p. 465) Coatlicue
The womb
of the fallen "egg" therefore, has to be Mother Earth, (or the earth monster
Coatlicue) who accepted the meteorite into her bosom and gave birth to the
twins. Coatlicue of the Metro is a blocky monument of this same
goddess. The tongue is lolling out (the Sun Disk shows the tongue
protruding as a cutting knife) and she is in the center of the world
on the Aztec Sun Disk. With so much identifying Coatlicue, it is
not difficult to translate this event into the geology of the land.
When the meteorite fell from the skies, it was buried within the lake,
under the earth, until many years later, another meteorite fell into
the Atlantic Deep near the Puerto Rican Trench. The second meteorite
fallout created a great sheer thrust that ran from the Trench to the
Baja Peninsula separating Lake Texcoco from the Balsas Valley and the
volcanoes Popocatepetl from Ixtaccíhuatl. The southern rim of
the Altiplano lifted and created a bowl-like plateau which became the
location of the city of Tenochtitlán where the great temple was
dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca (or the great sky battle
with the stars or between Night and Day).
