Mayahuel is the female deity associated with the maguey plant among cultures of central Mexico in the Postclassic era of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology, and in particular of the Aztec cultures. As the personification of the maguey plant, Mayahuel is also part of a complex of interrelated maternal and fertility goddesses in Aztec religion and is also connected with notions of fecundity and nourishment.
The making of pulque, as illustrated in the Florentine Codex (Book 1 Appendix, fo.40)
Mayahuel as depicted in the Codex Borgia.
Mayahuel as depicted in the Codex Ríos.
Mayahuel as depicted in the Codex Borbonicus (on the upper left side of Page 8).
The Aztec religion is a polytheistic and monistic pantheism in which the Nahua concept of teotl was construed as the supreme god Ometeotl, as well as a diverse pantheon of lesser gods and manifestations of nature. The popular religion tended to embrace the mythological and polytheistic aspects, and the Aztec Empire's state religion sponsored both the monism of the upper classes and the popular heterodoxies.
Mictlantecuhtli (left), god of death, and Quetzalcoatl, god of life; together they symbolize life and death.
Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds and knowledge, in the Codex Borgia
Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water and mistress of lakes, in the Codex Borbonicus
Tezcatlipoca, god of providence, in the Codex Borgia.
