Mayahuel- Aztec GodDeity

The Rescue from the Stars

Mayahuel was held captive in the sky by her grandmother, a tzitzimitl, one of the star demons who threatened to devour the sun. Ehecatl, the wind god, fell in love with her and carried her down to earth. The two lovers became a single forked tree, their branches intertwined, hoping to hide from the grandmother's pursuit. The tzitzimitl found them. She tore the tree apart and destroyed Mayahuel, feeding her remains to the other star demons.

Ehecatl gathered what was left and buried the fragments in the earth. From Mayahuel's bones grew the first maguey plant: the spiky agave from which the Aztecs drew pulque and fiber for rope and cloth.

Mother of the Four Hundred Rabbits

Mayahuel was depicted emerging from the maguey's spiky leaves, with four hundred breasts from which pulque flowed. One for each of her children, the Centzon Totochtin, the rabbit gods of drunkenness. With her husband Patecatl, who discovered the roots that turned her sap into sacred drink, she was the origin of every intoxication the rabbits carried: the warmth and the violence, the loosened tongue and the stupor.

The maguey itself was her body, still giving. Each plant was harvested once and then died, its heart cut out to release the aguamiel, the sweetness the community drank before fermentation turned it into something stronger.