Chantico- Aztec GodDeity"She Who Dwells in the House"

The Hearth Fire

Chantico was the fire at the center of the Aztec home. Every household maintained a flame as a daily religious duty, and she was what burned there. Goldsmiths and jewelers called her their patron, for the same fire that warmed a family at night transformed raw metal into gold ornaments by day. She was sometimes called Nine Dog after the day sign associated with eruptions, and her power reached beneath the domestic hearth to the volcanic fire under the mountains that ringed the Valley of Mexico.

The Dog and the Chile

During a ritual fast when chile peppers were forbidden, Chantico ate roasted fish seasoned with chile. For this the gods transformed her into a dog. Even a deity was not exempt from the laws governing fasting. The punishment fit: the dog was the guardian animal of the hearth, loyal and domestic, but hungry and unable to restrain its appetite. The goddess of the home became its most common animal, condemned to dwell where she had always dwelt but stripped of her divine form.