Xiuhcóatl

Xiuhcóatl is the fire serpent of Aztec religion, a turquoise-scaled serpent with an upturned snout that served as the weapon of the war god Huitzilopochtli and as an emblem of the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli.

The Name

The Nahuatl word xiuhcoatl joins xihuitl and coatl, serpent. Xihuitl has several meanings, including turquoise, year, grass, and comet, and it is tied to fire through the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli, the "Turquoise Lord." So the name is translated both as "turquoise serpent" and as "fire serpent."

The Story

The Xiuhcóatl's great moment comes in the Aztec story of the birth of Huitzilopochtli, recorded in Book 3 of the Florentine Codex. The earth goddess Coatlicue was sweeping on Coatepec, the Serpent Hill, when a ball of feathers fell from the sky. She tucked it into her waistband and became pregnant. Her daughter Coyolxauhqui and her four hundred sons, the Centzon Huitznahua, were outraged and marched up the hill to kill her. At the moment they arrived, Huitzilopochtli was born fully armed. He took up the Xiuhcóatl, struck Coyolxauhqui with it, and cut off her head, and her body broke apart as it tumbled down the hill. Then he chased off her brothers.

The Aztecs reenacted this myth in the design of the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan, which stood for Coatepec. A huge carved stone showing the dismembered Coyolxauhqui, found at the foot of the temple in 1978, made the story vivid for modern visitors.

Appearance and Powers

In Aztec art the Xiuhcóatl has a serpent's body made of segments, often with flame-like or paper-like strips, and a long snout that curls upward and back. Some images give it short legs ending in claws, while others show none. Xiuhtecuhtli wears a Xiuhcóatl on his back, and Huitzilopochtli carries one as a weapon, a little like a thunderbolt or a flaming spear.

The best-known Xiuhcóatls are the two great fire serpents that circle the outer edge of the Aztec Sun Stone. Their tails meet at the top beside a date glyph, and their heads face each other at the bottom, with faces of deities emerging from their open jaws.

Origins and Sources

Most surviving Xiuhcóatl images are Aztec sculptures and painted codices from the 15th and early 16th centuries. Scholars such as Karl Taube have argued that the fire serpent grew out of older war-serpent imagery going back to Teotihuacan, though the exact line of descent is debated. The main written source for the myth is the Florentine Codex, compiled in Nahuatl and Spanish under the friar Bernardino de Sahagún in the 1570s.

Legacy

The Xiuhcóatl is often contrasted with Quetzalcoatl: one a weapon of war and fire, the other a giver of wind, rain, and learning. Its name lives on in modern Mexico, including the FX-05 Xiuhcoatl rifle of the Mexican Army, and fire serpents based on it appear in fantasy art and games.

Related

• Quetzalcoatl: Quetzalcoatl is the Feathered Serpent of Mesoamerican religion, an Aztec creator god of wind, the morning star, learning, and maize, whose serpent form joins the quetzal bird's green plumes to a snake's body.
• Kukulkan: Kukulkan is the feathered serpent of the Yucatec Maya, honored at Chichen Itza and Mayapan, and remembered in Spanish-era accounts as a great lord who came from the west and was worshipped as a god.
• Boitatá: The Boitatá is a fiery serpent of Brazilian folklore, a glowing snake of flame whose name comes from Tupi words for "snake" and "fire," seen at night over fields, rivers, and marshes.
• Dragon Species
• Quetzalcoatl

Sources and Further Reading

• Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 3: The Origin of the Gods, trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (School of American Research and University of Utah, 1952)
• Mary Miller and Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 1993)
• Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan (Thames & Hudson, 1988)

Cite this entry: “Xiuhcóatl,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/xiuhcoatl.