Coyolxauhqui (2014)

Melanie Cervantes
18″ x 24″
3 – Color (Gold, Silver and White), Handprinted Screenprint, Black Archival Paper, Printed in Oakland, 2014

Coyolxauhqui is a powerful icon for Xicanas. She represents the fragmentation we endure as detribalized Indigenous women. I identify with her and feel like my walk through life is a process of putting myself back together again.Cherrie Moraga recounts the story of Coyolxauhqui best “The Mexica myth recounts the story of Coyolxauhqui, the Aztec moon goddess who attempts to kill her mother, Coatlicue, when she learns of her aging mother’s pregnancy. Through the murder she hopes to halt the birth of the War God, Huitzilopotchli, which will also mean the birth of slavery, human sacrifice, and imperialism (in short, patriarchy). She fails in her attempt and instead is murdered and dismembered by her brother Huitzilopotchli and banished into the darkness to become the moon. This ancient myth reminds Mexican women that, culturally-speaking, there is no mother-woman to assume who is defined by us. We have never had the power to do the defining. We wander not in search of our dead children, but our lost selves, our lost sexuality, our lost spirituality, our lost sabiduría.”