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Abstract The sixteenth-century Nahua (Aztec)1 goddess Cihuacoatl (Snakewoman) presents the twentieth-century observer with a host of apparently contradictory and puzzling images. She was both a goddess of fields and crops and a woman warrior. Her powers were borne not only by childbearing women but also by the male governmental official second only to the king, often in a dual leadership. Just after the Conquest, the Spanish friar Bernardino de Sahagun called her a “savage beast” and “evil omen” because she brought “misery” (Florentine Codex [FC], 1.6: n) while at the same time referring to her as the “highest of goddesses” because she aided women suffering in childbirth (FC 6.27-29, 31: 151-165, 179-182).
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