Ix Chel
Mayan Goddess of the Moon
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As an ancient fertility goddess, Ix-Chel was responsible for sending rain to nourish the crops. When fulfilling that function she was called “Lady Rainbow”. She helped insure fertility by overturning her sacred womb jar so that the waters would flow.
Though sometimes depicted as a goddess of catastrophe (the woman who stands by as the world floods), many of her myths show her in a more benevolent light—as a goddess who refused to become a victim of oppression.
This was a woman who, when faced with adversity, took charge of her life and turned it around!
Ix-Chel
was almost too beautiful, this girl with opalescent skin who sat in the skies brushing her shimmering hair for hours on end. All the gods were captivated by her. All but one, that is.
Kinich Ahau, the Sun God, seemed immune to Ix-Chel’s charms. Yet he was the only one she really ever wanted. For years she had longed for him as she watched him glide across the sky in all his golden splendor.
But the more Ix-Chel followed him around, the worse the weather on earth became. As she chased after him the tides would rise, creating floods that inundated the fields and caused the crops to die. So enamored was she, that Ix-Chel did not even notice the havoc she was causing.
Like many moon goddesses Ix-Chel was a fine weaver, and it was the beautiful cloth she wove that finally captured Kinich Ahau’s attention. Soon they had become lovers.
Ix-Chel bore the Sun God four sons. They were the jaguar gods and could creep through the night unseen. They were named for the four directions, and each one was responsible for holding up his corner of the sky.
Unfortunately Ix-Chel’s love affair with the Sun God drew the ire of her disapproving grandfather. In his anger he struck Ix-Chel with lightning, killing her. For the next 183 days she lay lifeless as hundreds of dragonflies surrounded her body and sang to her. Waking suddenly, she returned to the palace of the Sun God.
Their relationship was turbulent—Kinich Ahau had a suspicious nature and was often consumed with jealousy. To make matters worse, he also had a fiery temper. Suspecting that the innocent Ix-Chel was having an affair with his brother (the Morning Star), Kinich Ahau threw her out of the sky.
Ix-Chel quickly found refuge with the vulture gods. Hearing this, Kinich Ahau rushed to plead with her to return and promised never to treat her so poorly again. Little time passed before he became jealous and abusive again.
Finally Ix-Chel realized he was not going to change. She decided to leave him for good. Waiting until he fell asleep, she crept out into the night, taking the form of a jaguar and becoming invisible whenever he came searching for her.
Many nights she spent on her sacred island (Cozumel) nursing women during their pregnancies and childbirth. Ix-Chel, like other moon goddesses, governed women’s reproductive systems so it was quite understandable that she would become the protector of women during pregnancy and labor.
The small Isla Mujeres (“Island of Women”) was devoted to the worship of Ix-Chel. Comfortable with all phases of life, she was honored as the weaver of the life cycle. She protected the fertility of women and was also the keeper of the souls of the dead.
Ix-Chel encourages us to acknowledge the negative forces affecting our lives. And she prompts us to assert ourselves fully in the face of physical or emotional violence that would diminish our sense of self.
Ixchel or Ix Chel (pronounced [iʃˈtʃel]) is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in the ancient Maya culture. She corresponds, more or less, to Toci Yoalticitl ‘Our Grandmother the Nocturnal Physician’, an Aztec earth goddess inhabiting the sweatbath, and is related to another Aztec goddess invoked at birth, viz. Cihuacoatl. In Taube's revised Schellhas-Zimmermann classification of codical deities, Ixchel corresponds to the goddess O.
Identification
Referring to the early 16th-century, Landa calls Ixchel “the goddess of making children”, and also mentions her as the goddess of medicine. In the month of Zip, the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by the physicians and shamans (hechiceros), and medicine bundles containing little idols of "the goddess of medicine whom they called Ixchel" and also divination stones were brought forward. In the Ritual of the Bacabs, Ixchel is once called 'grandmother'. In their combination, the goddess’s two principal qualities (birthing and healing) suggest an analogy with the aged Aztec goddess of midwifery, Tocî Yoalticitl.
Ixchel was already known to the Classical Mayas. As Taube has demonstrated,[1] she corresponds to goddess O of the Dresden Codex, an aged woman with jaguar ears. A crucial piece of evidence in his argument is the so-called ‘Birth Vase’ (Kerr 5113), a Classic Maya container showing a childbirth presided over by various old women with weaving implements in their headdress, and headed by an old jaguar goddess, the codical goddess O. On another Classic Maya vase, goddess O is shown acting as a physician, further confirming her identity as Ixchel. The combination of Ixchel with several aged midwives on the Birth Vase recalls the Tz'utujil assembly of midwife goddesses called the ‘female lords’, the most powerful of whom is described as being particularly fearsome.[2]
Meaning of the name
Name glyph of Ix Chel including the prefix 'red', Dresden Codex. The name Ixchel was in use in 16th-century Yucatán and in the Baja Verapaz. Its meaning is not certain. Assuming that the name originated in Yucatán, chel could mean ‘rainbow’. Her glyphic names in the (Post-Classic) codices have two basic forms, one a prefix with the primary meaning of ‘red’ followed by a pictogram, the other one logosyllabic. Ix Chel's Classic name glyph remains to be identified. It is quite possible that several names were in use to refer to the goddess, and these need not necessarily have included her late Yucatec and Pokom name. Her codical name is now generally rendered as 'Chak Chel'. The designation 'Red Goddess' seems to have a complement in the designation of the young goddess I as 'White Goddess'.
Ixchel and the moon
In the past, Ix Chel was sometimes assumed to be identical to the Classic Maya moon goddess because of the Moon's association with fertility and procreation. However, iconographically, such an equation is questionable, since what is considered the Classic Maya moon goddess, identifiable through her crescent, is always represented as a fertile young woman. On the other hand, the waning moon is often called ‘Our Grandmother’, and not inconceivably, Ixchel may have represented this particular lunar phase associated with the diminishing fertility and eventual dryness of old age. Her codical attribute of an inverted jar could then refer to the jar of waning moon being emptied. However this may be, the moon cycle, taken alone, is of obvious importance to the work of the midwife. The maid, mother and grandmother equation of the three basic phases of the moon, representations of lunar forces, seem to be quite common among cultures around the world.
Ixchel as an earth and a war goddess
An entwined serpent serves as Ixchel's headdress, crossed bones may adorn her skirt, and instead of human hands and feet, she sometimes has claws. Very similar features are found with Aztec earth goddesses, of whom Tlaltecuhtli, Tocî, and Cihuacoatl were invoked by the midwives. More in particular, the jaguar goddess Ixchel could be conceived as a female warrior, with a gaping mouth suggestive of cannibalism, thus showing her affinity with Cihuacoatl Yaocihuatl 'War Woman'. This manifestation of Cihuacoatl was always hungry for new victims, just as her midwife manifestation helped to produce new babies viewed as captives.
Ixchel as a rain goddess
In the Dresden Codex, goddess O occurs in almanacs dedicated to the rain deities or Chaacs and is stereotypically inverting a water jar. On the famous page 74 originally preceding the New Year pages, her emptying of the water jar replicates the vomiting of water by a celestial dragon. Although this scene is usually understood as the Flood bringing about the world’s and the year's end, it might also represent the dramatic onset of the rainy season. The image of the jar filled with rain water may derive from the sac holding the amniotic liquid; turning the jar would then be equivalent to birthgiving.
Mythology
Ixchel figures in a Verapaz myth related by Las Casas, according to which she, together with her spouse, Itzamna, had thirteen sons, two of whom (probably corresponding to the Howler Monkey Gods) created heaven and earth and all that belongs to it. No other myth figuring Ixchel has been preserved. However, her mythology may once have focused on the sweatbath, the place where Maya mothers were wont to go before and after birthgiving. As stated above, the Aztec counterpart to Ixchel as a patron of midwifery, Tocî, was also the goddess of the sweatbath. In myths from Oaxaca, the aged adoptive mother of the Sun and Moon siblings is finally imprisoned in a sweatbath to become its patron deity.[3] Several Maya myths have aged goddesses end up in the same place, in particular the Cakchiquel and Tz'utujil grandmother of Sun and Moon, called B’atzb’al ‘Weaving Implement' in Tz'utujil. On the other hand, in Q'eqchi' Sun and Moon myth, an aged Maya goddess (Xkitza) who would otherwise appear to correspond closely to the Oaxacan Old Adoptive Mother, is not connected to the sweatbath.
Cult of Ixchel
In the early 16th century, Maya women seeking to ensure a fruitful marriage would travel to the sanctuary of Ix Chel on the island of Cozumel, the most important place of pilgrimage after Chichen Itza, off the east coast of the Yucatán peninsula. There, a priest hidden in a large statue would give oracles (Cogolludo). To the north of Cozumel is a much smaller island baptized by its Spanish discoverer, Hernández de Córdoba, the 'Island of Women' (Isla Mujeres) "because of the idols he found there, of the goddesses of the country, Ixchel, Ixchebeliax, Ixhunie, Ixhunieta, only vestured from the girdle down, and having the breast covered after the manner of the Indians" (Landa). On the other side of the peninsula, the head town of the Chontal province of Acalan (Itzamkanac) venerated Ixchel as one its main deities. One of Acalan's coastal settlements was called Tixchel 'At the place of Ixchel'. The Spanish conqueror, Cortés, tells us about another place in Acalan where unmarried young women were sacrificed to a "goddess in whom they put great trust and hope", possibly again Ix Chel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixchel
Ixchel, Earth and Moon Goddess
in Mayan Religion, Mythology
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Goddess
Name and Etymology:
Ixchel, "Lady Rainbow"
Ix Chel
Chac Chel
Religion and Culture of Ixchel:
Maya, Mesoamerica
Symbols, Iconography, and Art of Ixchel:
Mayan depictions of Ixchel show her as an old woman with jaguar claws, carrying a serpent and wearing a skirt decorated with crossed bones. Ixchel might also be depicted carrying a jug of water which she used to send floods or rainstorms. Finally, she might be portrayed as a female warrior carrying a spear and shied.
Ixchel was Goddess of:
Moon
Earth
Pregnant women
Procreation
Healing
Divination
Falling or Pouring Waters
JAGUAR!!!
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