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Concept
Ixchel
Summary
Ixchel or Ix Chel (iʃˈt͡ʃel) is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar Goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture. In a similar parallel, she corresponds, 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 (or Ilamatecuhtli). In Taube's revised Schellhas-Zimmermann classification of codical deities, Ixchel corresponds to the Goddess O.
Referring to the early 16th century, Landa calls Ixchel “the Goddess of making children”. He also mentions her as the Goddess of medicine, as shown by the following. In the month of Zip, the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by the physicians and shamans (hechiceros), and divination stones as well as medicine bundles containing little idols of "the Goddess of medicine whom they called Ixchel" were brought forward. In the Ritual of the Bacabs, Ixchel is once called "grandmother". In their combination, the Goddess's two principal domains (birthing and healing) suggest an analogy with the aged Aztec Goddess of midwifery, Tocî Yoalticitl.
Ixchel was already known to the Classical Maya. As Taube has demonstrated, 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, headed by an old jaguar Goddess, the codical Goddess O; all have weaving implements in their headdresses. On another Classic Maya vase (Kerr 6020), 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 Tzʼutujil assembly of midwife Goddesses called the "female lords", the most powerful of whom is described as being particularly fearsome.
The name Ixchel was in use in 16th-century Yucatán and amongst the Poqom in the Baja Verapaz. Its meaning is not certain.
Official source
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