Cihuacóatl, «Serpent woman, the grandmother», is one of the forty-five energies that rule the days, trecenas and veintenas of the Mexica calendar. Childbirth, the midwives and the memory of the ancients.

Why do you call Cihuacóatl an energy and not a god?

Because «god» translates badly. The Mexica did not separate the deity from the force it stands for as the European word does. «Energy» is not perfect either, but it does not carry that freight. It is a decision of this site, declared as one — and it applies to Cihuacóatl as to the other forty-four.

Why is the full entry on Cihuacóatl only in Spanish?

Because the entry on Cihuacóatl quotes Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own sixteenth-century words. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation. The Spanish entry is linked from this page.

The energies

One of the forty-five energies

Cihuacóatl

Serpent woman, the grandmother

What it rules

Childbirth, the midwives and the memory of the ancients.

Why «energy» and not «god»

Because «god» translates badly. The Mexica did not separate the deity from the force it stands for in the way the European word does, and calling them gods imports an idea that is not theirs. «Energy» is not perfect either, but it does not carry that freight. It is a decision of this site, and it is declared as one.

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of Cihuacóatl. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

El nombre y sus otros nombres
La que molió los huesos
Ilamatecuhtli y la veintena de Títitl
Decimotercera del día
De dónde viene su imagen

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

Ilamatecuhtli and the veintena of TitItl

Under the name Ilamatecuhtli, «the old lady», she presides over the veintena of TitItl, the leanest and coldest point of the year, when what matters is what holds. The grandmother rules the tightened time.

Thirteenth of the day

She closes the count of the Thirteen Lords of the Day, on the number of culmination, with the parrot as companion bird. The one who has already seen enough occupies the last rung — and the parrot, which repeats what it heard, is the exact image of that.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «Cihuacóatl», The energies. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/energy/cihuacoatl/

The name

Serpent Woman. The serpent is renewal, and the woman is the earth that bears: her name joins the two in one figure. The sources also call her Ilamatecuhtli, the old lady, and Tonantzin, our venerated mother.