COATLICUE

[Aztec] The Aztec earth goddess of live and death, mother of the gods, and mother of the stars of the southern sky. Coatlicue became pregnant when she stuffed a ball of feathers -- that had fallen from the sky -- in her bosom. Her outraged children sought to slay her, but the god Huitzilopochtli emerged fully armed from his mother's womb and slew many of his brothers and sisters. Coatlicue represented the type of the devouring mother in whom were combined both the womb and the grave. Coatlicue was a serpent goddess, depicted wearing a skirt of snakes.