XOCHIQUETZAL
Aztec Goddess of flowers, love, and craftmanship.
by: Noni
he Goddess of Flowers and love, singing and
dancing,Xochiquetzal's name means "flower petal" and everywhere
she goes she is followed by butterflies and birds. The quezal (bird) in
particular is sacred to her. She presided over the twentieth day of the
Aztec calander, and once every eight years the people would hold a great feast
in her
honour. On her feast day the Aztecs would wear animal andflower
masks. A young and beautiful Goddess, she was well aware of her charms and
flirted outrageously and often. She was a fertility Goddess with a strong
sexuality which she used to seduce her brother,Xochipilli. This adultery
would explain why she is the patron goddess of
harlots. Xochiquetzal is also the patroness of pregnant women and childbirth.
The Aztecs often invoked her to make a marriage fruitful, the bride plaiting her
hair and coiling it around her head, leaving two plumes of "feathers"
like the tail of the quetzal.
Xochiquetzal is the mother of the snake-bird god Quetzalcoatl,who
descended into the underworld. This would explain Xochiquetzal's
association with the underworld and why the Aztecs made offerings of marigold
garlands to her during the festivals of the dead.
The information for this article was
sourced from "The book of
Goddesses" by Roni Jay
