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Cipactli
The Primordial Waters
Danger Level: 10/10
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Abilities
Endless HungerMultiple MouthsPrimordial PowerEarth Foundation
Lore & Legend
The Earth That Was a Crocodile
In the Histoyre du Mechique and related Nahua cosmogonies, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl tear the primordial caiman Cipactli to make land. Mouths at the joints explain why the earth still drinks blood. The day-sign Cipactli opens the 260-day count. One caiman, one world-body: later art still shows earth as a hungry hide.
Primary Sources
“The gods seized Cipactli, the earth-monster of the primeval waters, and from her body they made the land that still hungers.”