Cihuacoatl Tattoo Meaning

Motherhood, grief, childbirth, and the serpent woman who weeps for lost children.

Cihuacoatl, the 'Serpent Woman,' is one of the most ancient Aztec earth and mother goddesses — the fierce patron of childbirth and of women who die bringing life into the world, the grinder of the bones from which humanity was made, and the weeping woman whose cries in the night foretell disaster. To carry Cihuacoatl is to carry motherhood, grief, and childbirth — the Serpent Woman who presides over the warrior-struggle of birth, who ground the bones that became humankind, and who weeps through the night for lost children, the fierce mother of life and mourning.

Cihuacoatl — whose name means 'Serpent Woman' — is one of the most ancient and powerful of the Aztec earth goddesses, a fierce mother-deity associated with the earth, fertility, and above all childbirth. She is the patron of women who die in childbirth — the cihuateteo — who in Aztec belief were honored as the equivalent of warriors who died in battle, for childbirth was understood as a battle and the woman in labor as a warrior fighting to bring new life into the world. A woman who died giving birth had fallen in that battle, and was accorded the high honor due a fallen warrior.

Cihuacoatl appears as a fierce warrior woman, sometimes depicted carrying an obsidian blade (the weapon of sacrifice and battle) and sometimes bearing an empty cradleboard — the cradle without a child, a haunting image of childbirth's danger and of the children lost. Her presence was fearsome: her screams and cries heard in the night were understood as terrible omens, prophecies of disaster and ill to come. As the fierce patron of childbirth and its fallen warrior-mothers, Cihuacoatl embodies the danger, heroism, and high stakes of bringing life into the world. The Aztec Cihuacoatl is the Serpent Woman, fierce patron of childbirth and the warrior-mothers who die in it. The Aztec Cihuacoatl is the Serpent Woman and the warriors of childbirth — one of the most ancient Aztec earth goddesses, a fierce mother-deity of earth, fertility, and childbirth, patron of women who die in childbirth (the cihuateteo, honored as the equivalent of warriors fallen in battle, for childbirth was a battle and the woman in labor a warrior), appearing as a fierce warrior woman with an obsidian blade or an empty cradleboard, her night-screams understood as terrible omens of disaster — embodying the danger, heroism, and high stakes of bringing life into the world.

Cihuacoatl is one of the oldest Aztec deities, possibly predating the Mexica and originating with earlier Mesoamerican cultures. She was the patron goddess of Culhuacan before the Aztec period. The title 'Cihuacoatl' was also used for the second-highest office in the Aztec Empire — the Cihuacoatl was the head administrator and second only to the tlatoani (emperor), suggesting the goddess's function as the organizing principle of civic life. La Llorona — the weeping woman of Mexican folklore who drowned her children and wanders waterways at night — is widely understood as a syncretism of Cihuacoatl and colonial Catholic influences; she is one of the most enduring supernatural figures in Mexican popular culture. The cihuateteo (divine women who died in childbirth) were considered dangerous spirits who could cause illness in children and make men behave badly — their feast days required precautions. The fifth sun creation myth (Quetzalcoatl and Cihuacoatl creating humanity from bones) appears in the Florentine Codex (Sahagún, c. 1569 CE) and the Leyenda de los Soles.

Cihuacoatl across cultures

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