Coatlicue — Mother of Gods

She wears a skirt of writhing serpents and a necklace of human hearts, hands, and skulls. Her feet are clawed. Her face is two serpent heads meeting in profile. Coatlicue is the earth itself — the mother who gives life and demands death in return, who swallows the sun each night and births it again each morning. She is the most ancient force in Aztec religion, predating the other gods, and the statue of her discovered in Mexico City in 1790 was so terrifying that Spanish authorities immediately reburied it.

These signs carry the serpent skirt, the skull necklace, the clawed feet, and the terrible beauty of the earth mother.