Coyolxauhqui Tattoo Meaning

The moon, rebellion, and the dismembered goddess whose pieces still light the night.

Coyolxauhqui is the dismembered moon goddess — 'She of the Golden Bells,' the Aztec goddess who led her siblings against their mother and was struck down and torn apart by the newborn sun god, her broken body cast down to become the moon, defeated yet shining still in the night sky. To carry Coyolxauhqui is to carry the moon, rebellion, and the dismembered goddess whose pieces still light the night — the defeated one whose continued visibility is the proof that defeat is not absence, the goddess re-membered out of her own scattering.

Coyolxauhqui — 'She of the Golden Bells,' named for the golden bells that adorned her cheeks — was the Aztec moon goddess and the leader of the Centzon Huitznahua, the Four Hundred Southern Stars, her many siblings. Her story is one of the most violent and dramatic in all of Aztec myth. When their mother, the earth goddess Coatlicue, miraculously became pregnant with Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, Coyolxauhqui was enraged or shamed by the pregnancy, and she led her four hundred siblings in an attack to kill their mother Coatlicue before the child could be born — a rebellion against the coming of the sun.

But as the attackers fell upon Coatlicue, Huitzilopochtli was born — and born fully grown and fully armed, a warrior god ready for battle. He immediately turned upon his sister Coyolxauhqui, the leader of the assault, and struck her down. He dismembered her, cutting her body apart, and hurled the pieces down from the top of Coatepec, Serpent Mountain, to its base. There her broken body came to rest — and her body became the moon. The sun, newly born, cast down the moon goddess in pieces; and so the myth tells why the moon, defeated by the sun, hangs broken and pale in the night sky, the remnant of the goddess the sun struck down. The Aztec Coyolxauhqui led a rebellion against the sun's birth and was dismembered by the newborn Huitzilopochtli, her body becoming the moon. The Aztec Coyolxauhqui is the goddess torn apart at Serpent Mountain — 'She of the Golden Bells,' the moon goddess and leader of the Centzon Huitznahua (the four hundred southern stars); when their mother Coatlicue became pregnant with Huitzilopochtli (the sun god), Coyolxauhqui led her siblings in an attack to kill Coatlicue before the child could be born, but Huitzilopochtli was born fully armed, immediately dismembered his sister, and threw her body to the bottom of Coatepec (Serpent Mountain) — where her body became the moon, the sun casting down the moon goddess in pieces.

The Coyolxauhqui Stone was discovered on February 21, 1978 CE by electrical workers digging near the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City — the discovery of this 3.25-meter diameter monolith led directly to the excavation of the Templo Mayor (Great Temple of Tenochtitlan) and the establishment of the Templo Mayor Museum. The stone is considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. The Templo Mayor (c. 1375–1521 CE) was the religious center of the Aztec Empire — it was demolished by the Spanish conquistadors and its stone used to build the colonial city; its foundations were built over and lost until the 1978 CE discovery. Coyolxauhqui's name ('She of the Golden Bells' or 'She Whose Face is Adorned with Bells') refers to the golden bells painted on her cheeks in iconography. Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird of the South) was the patron god of the Mexica and the god of the sun and war — his birth myth at Coatepec is the foundational myth of Aztec cosmology.

Coyolxauhqui across cultures

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