Stone of Coyolxauhqui
In their enormous pantheon, the Aztecs recognized several female deities of the “Dark Side,” most of them with sinister aspects.
This gallery of their often gruesome images is entitled The Aztec Ladies of the Night.
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See also:
See also:
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The Jade Skirt with Maize Plant
Though there was no hierarchy amongst the several powerful Aztec goddesses, the oldest and most widely respected female deity was Chalchiuhtlicue, the Jade Skirt. She represented the benefits of flowing water as well as its ruthless power. In other contexts, she embodied the feminine phenomena of child-bearing and motherhood.
The Jade Skirt was frequently depicted in the codices as shown in the latest gallery The Aztec Goddess of Water.
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See also: The Aztec Ahuiateteo
Butterfly Totem of 7th Lord of the Day
The staple grain crops in the ancient western world were rice, wheat, barley, etc. In the American hemisphere, the staple grain was a domesticated wild grass called maize, which began to be cultivated some 9,000 years ago in Mesoamerica, roughly around the same era that agriculture arose in the western world. While the western staples were merely practical fuels for civilization, maize did that and more, entering the religious lives of the many civilizations it fed as a deified plant. All its types and growth phases were deified and envisioned as gods and goddesses, a veritable platoon of protectors and nurturers.
This corn-cohort is the subject of my next gallery of Aztec deity images from the codices. Again, I’ve refurbished and repaired most of the deteriorated art for optimum appeal and appreciation of the ancient mythological figures.
Check this gallery out at The Aztec Maize Deities.
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With this posting, I’m starting a series of blogs on galleries of (variously repaired, refurbished, and redrawn) images of Aztec deities. My purpose is to present an overview of each divinity as envisioned by the original scribe/artists. Collected from the few original manuscripts (codices) that survived the book burnings in the Spanish conquest, I hope these dramatic images will provide the modern viewer with vivid mental pictures of the ancient religion/mythology.
There has been much recent work in reconstructing and reinterpreting the Aztec gods and goddesses, but most of it has been in terms of romanticized, politicized, fantasized, and “psychedelicized” treatments. My repairs, refurbishing, and redrawing attempt to re-vision these deities as originally created by the scribe/artists and illuminate the mysterious ancient rituals and iconographic conventions.
Let me begin with a group of “calendric” deities called the Lords of Five. For the Aztecs, the number five symbolized sufficiency, like the five fingers on a hand, and anything more was excessive. (The numeral five was written by five dots in a row.) Excess was perceived as a danger, and punishment was a natural consequence. The Lords of Five were also called the Ahuiateteo, deities embodying all types of pleasure (physical and mental), who also were charged with punishing excessive indulgence, frequently with illness or bad luck.
Click HERE to view/download the illustrated .pdf file called The Aztec Ahuiateteo. Envision…
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Completing projects, I generally try to take a brief armchair vacation and then switch gears to address others waiting their turn. For instance, when I wrapped up my four-year Tonalamatl recreation last summer, I diddled for a week or so in the garden and then resumed my senile reminiscing for KID STUFF. With that fun analysis of my innocent childhood done, I took a week or so of restorative naps and lazy lying about.
Re-energized, I’ve moved on to a much-needed revision of my illustrated encyclopedia of Aztec deities called YE GODS! The Aztec Pantheon. The first edition from ten years ago is still available and frequently downloaded as a comprehensive reference, but I’m rather abashed by its limited scope and frequent errors and omissions. I pulled it together way back then in the early research for my coloring book YE GODS! Icons of Aztec Deities.
My vast stock of information on and images of the many Aztec gods and goddesses will provide galleries of authentic images of Aztec deities from the several surviving codices (manuscripts) for folks to form meaningful mental images of the strange gods and goddesses. This revision will probably take a considerable period of time, and I’ll be issuing the galleries with encyclopedic comments individually in blog posts. Look for the first posting shortly to be called The Aztec Lords of Five.
Meanwhile, as mental health breaks from these fits of Aztec mythology, I’d once planned more memoirs to fill in some blank periods of my relative youth, but I don’t think I ought to spend my few remaining years in such self-centered attention. Instead, I’ve decided to turn to historical fiction, a project long inspired by a fascinating old book by the notorious Immanuel Velikovsky. The chapters of this future novel, I plan to alternate with Aztec encyclopedic entries.
If and when I finish the Pantheon revision, I’ll start drawing icons for my coloring book again. Several important and dramatic deities remain to be envisioned ceremonially like Tlazolteotl, Xochiquetzal, Xolotl, Xiuhtecuhtli, etc. When I’ve multi-tasked through this aggressive agenda—should I live so long—we’ll see what comes next. Should there indeed be a future…
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The Valedictator
More authentically: C’est fait! It’s done!
Now in early December 2025, I’m officially announcing the completion of the latest piece of an old man’s memory madness, twelve chapters on my exceptional childhood (from 1942-1960, from 0 to 18) called KID STUFF, A Memoir of Chronic Innocence.
My childhood was unique, just as every individual’s life is by definition unique, though folks usually share many cultural contexts and conditioning in creating their personas. After a more or less “normal” childhood, my pubescence and adolescence (12 to 18) turned exceptional when we moved to a truck stop café out in the backwoods of Arkansas… Also exceptional, though shared perhaps to a lesser degree with thousands of teenaged boys across the country, was my three-year romantic obsession with Annette Funicello of the Mickey Mouse Club.
Meanwhile, my chronic innocence persisted, largely dictated by a merciless religion, but also by isolation. Through those 18 years, I never touched anyone impurely nor was touched that way by anyone—except myself. Of course, all my innocent hopes and dreams were dramatic, if futile.
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Achilles and Patroclus
I’ve been working on my “childhood” memoir KID STUFF since the middle of last year and have just now wrapped it up with a 12th and final chapter called THE VALEDICTATOR.
In the disturbed aftermath of my insane obsession with Annette Funicello, my busy senior year in an Arkansas high school brought a whirlwind of social activity, heavier work in our café, and anxiety about college. For the first time I began to feel like a “normal” teenage boy. However, in escaping from Annette’s enchantment, I ceased most heterosexual inclinations. My frequent strong attractions to and affections for boys I cleverly rationalized as profound brotherly love in the tradition of Achilles and Patroclus. At the mature age of 18, I remained an innocent virgin who had never kissed or even touched anybody impurely (other than myself).
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In the midst of the recent political, economic, and social uproar, I’ve kept my head down in my little house and plugged along in my memoir series called KID STUFF. It was a long haul, but I’ve now wrapped up Ashdown High III – Trying to Forget. (One more chapter to go!)
In the previous chapter, I’d abjured my insane love (platonic passion) for Annette, but that wasn’t the end of it. Three years of futilely adoring the Mouseketeer I consider to have been in fact a severe, protracted emotional trauma, resulting in posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). Through the fall of 1959, that disabling psychological disorder disturbed and reshaped my adolescent self. As a classic symptom, I couldn’t quite make myself let Annette go finally and completely. Still caring for her, I decided to whittle a little wooden doll as a birthday present and formal farewell gift, which led to a blood sacrifice and burnt offerings.
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Heads up! The next chapter of my childhood memoir KID STUFF has now hit the website. Another long slog through the latter half of my Junior year at Ashdown High, it’s entitled simply LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. Easier said than done…
This chapter describes how a feckless romantic teenager tried to stop adoring Annette Funicello. It was like that ancient song by Teresa Brewer (my father’s favorite singer): “Let me go, lover / Let me be / Set me free / From your spell…” But the beautiful TV star continued to haunt my heart. I was caught in a trap, a vicious loop of futile passion, despair and depression, platonic attraction to others’ beauty, bitter loneliness for a brother, futile passion, etc.
Trying to quit my addiction to Annette cold turkey by loving everybody platonically with no exceptions, simply aroused suspicions of perversion and didn’t work anyway. The only respites from my insane possession came with an atomic adventure in Atlantic City (the high point in my high school career), a trip to Texarkana for my first and only date (kissless), and a few days of clean fun at 4-H Camp with a brief eye-opening experience.
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My memoir of innocent childhood KID STUFF keeps growing by leaps and bounds. This is to announce its latest instalment (the ninth if I’m not mistaken). I call it SHORT SHORTS for what is perhaps the most impactful image in the adolescent chapter.
Covering most of my junior year in a new high school with new friends, this chapter describes a teenaged me escaping from two very tenacious cults. One, a popular religious cult, I kicked by spiritual means, and the other, a romantic celebrity cult, simply died on the vine.
I escaped from the Catholic cult by rejecting its myths and dogmas as unnecessarily complex and nonsensical phantasms, replacing them with a new personal creed around the biblical instruction simply to love each other. It was liberating, opening my heart to affection for everybody, girl or boy. Free of sexual under- or over-tones, I practiced it at every opportunity.
Escaping from fanatical, platonic fantasies of Annette Funicello was a much slower process. In this third year of my passion for her, that spring I got flooded with her guest spots acting on TV programs. However, this older Annette, now a professional actress, was a disappointing virtual reality, and I came to see that my obsessive love for her was insanity.
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Richard Balthazar 