Tlazo*Teotl : a classic case of character defamation

Woman,
as the magical door from the other world,
through which lives enter into this,
stands naturally in counterpoise
to the door of death,
through which they leave. 

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God

 Tlazoteotl giving birth to Ceneteotl, the Divine gift of Maize (corn)  

Huasteca / Azteca / Toltec

Tlazoteotl intrigues me. I like her so much that I have given her the nickname 'Tlazo'. As snapshots from the continuum of the female psyche, mythological goddesses always give us clues about some essential characteristic of the collective feminine. Tlazo addresses one of our least favorites: the interminable duty of cleaning. 

If you don't think that cleaning is a inherent pre-occupation (meaning, it comes before all other occupations) of women, consider this advert for an event in London in 2002: 

Cleanliness, Dirt and Women's Roles

A one-day multi-disciplinary symposium for researchers focusing on the association of women with the concepts of cleanliness and dirt and their role in keeping bodies, clothes, homes, society and the urban environment clean from c1800 to the present day.

 Thursday 7th November 2002, 9.30 am - 5 pm
At The Women's Library, Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT
£20 including tea and coffee
       

Multi-disciplinary, you say? Do you mean what we already do at home: sweeping the floor and doing laundry while cooking dinner and giving baby a bath at the same time - after we get home from "work"?

 

We now learn that we are also held responsible for the cleanliness of "society and the urban environment". Gosh, we've got to get a plan to windex the street lamps in our spare time. We can figure it out at the Symposium - at least there, we're given tea.

Tlazo got a bad rap (a bad rep, you might say) from the Spaniards, who referred to her as The Goddess of Filth. This is not just inaccurate, it is also insulting, as she should more rightly be thought of as the Goddess of Cleanliness. She is often pictured carrying her escobas (brooms).

That thingy in her left hand must be the broom -  before the invention of broom-STICKS, apparently. Possibly the other item is a Swiffer Duster, an essential tool while giving birth. Man may work from sun to sun, but Tlazo works even with a baby still hanging from the umbilical cord. Dust never sleeps, you know. 

  

Trust the Euros to get it backwards, as they did with most everything in the so-called New World (it was only 'new' to them). So, where is Huasteca, exactly? That's actually new to me.

https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/tag/mother-goddess

Somehow, the Borgia Codex, where the stories of Tlazo, and many others, are recorded, is now in the archives of the Vatican. The Codex has been kept intact, and that's the best that can be said for its inequitable change in ownership. 

The Vatican acquired it from the estate of Cardinal Stefano Borgia, after whom it is named. Early on, Stefano developed an avid interest in history and became a collector of all manner of antiquities; his classical education was sponsored by his uncle Alessandro, the Archbishop of Fermo. But how did he get the Codex? 

Turns out he purchased it from one Alexander Von Humboldt, a Prussian geographer, naturalist, and explorer, who spent considerable time traveling in Latin America. Von Humboldt turns out to be somewhat brilliant, being one of the first to propose that South America and Africa were once part of the same land mass. 

Von Humboldt also resurrected the ancient Greek word KOSMOS as the title for his account of the journey, published in multiple volumes over a 21-year period.  In it, he sought the "unifying principles of scientific knowledge and culture", even suggesting a holistic perception of the universe as "one interactive entity". Now that's progressive (which is what we say when a European stumbles on to a concept that indigenous people everywhere have always known. Golly, we catch on quick, several thousand years later). 

Interestingly, Kosmos actually means "orderly arrangement" - even extending to the concept of  'decoration' -  from the Greek Kosmeo: to put in proper order. One of the earliest of human decorations was the practice of applying red ochre to the bodies of women, often done at the conclusion of the menstrual period to indicate that the woman was no longer 'dangerous' (i.e., bleeding). 

So powerfully did this blood strike terror into the hearts of men that any number of unspeakable consequences might befall them by coming into proximity with it. In one tradition, a woman who stays in the village during her period (instead of retreating to the Moon Lodge) could be blamed for anything bad that happened. Another taboo prohibits a menstrual woman from touching a corpse. Apparently we are even dangerous to people who are already dead.

So the red signal - the Kosmetikos - was very helpful. It kept the world in order, by signifying when a woman was 'safe', and a suitor could approach her without risk for paralysis or developing a hunchback. It worked so well that we still use it today - but now, we call it lipstick. Untold dollars are spent on 'Kosmetikos'!

What I know is this: there is no place on earth, where people are living, that you can go without finding some woman cleaning it up. We are all Goddesses of Filth, by this definition. So, we're putting in for a different job title, please - the Queen of Clean, the Empress of MessLessNess, or something catchy like that. Otherwise, you Spaniards can go windex your own street lamps, see? 

Happy New Moons,

Ms. Kiva's Mom

•