Images of Ixchel
C. 700 CE. K5778, Public domain.
Public Domain.
Emerging as early as 1500 BCE, Ixchel, the Maya jaguar goddess of the moon, midwifery, and medicine embodies the divine or sacred feminine and, for traditionalists within this living faith, the many roles of women in Maya culture. Depicted in three dominant forms, we find her as maiden, mother, and crone. She has the not uncommon divine multiplicity of names, histories, and powers or “domains,” as, for example, both a punisher and healer. Variously called “Rainbow Woman,” Big Rainbow,” “White Moon Lady,” and others. She even receives offerings to protect travelers on trade routes. Although scholars do not agree on all aspects of her character, and she continues to change over time, the following elements stand out as both scholarly credible and popular.
Mother Goddess In her mother form, Ixchel blends qualities of both a moon and an earth goddess. In this aspect, her headdress includes a cotton coil and spindles, symbols of weaving and the dry season. In some traditions, the coiled serpent is absent from her headdress in this form because, as a wife and mother, she is too occupied with domestic responsibilities to focus on healing.
As a mother goddess, Ixchel is associated with sexual desire, fertility, motherhood, weaving, the earth, and agricultural abundance.
Royal British Columbia Museum,
Victoria, BC. CA. CC 4.0 License.
Today, as anthropologist Traci Ardren has established, Ixchel serves as a modern, positive symbol of Maya ethnic identity or Maya-ness. For a marginalized group, such a powerful image serves as a necessary corrective to cultural erasure. The Maya people continue to live in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, holding on to their languages and traditions. Estimates range from 6 to 12 million Maya people.
Museo Amparo, Puebla.
CC 3.0 License.
Independent Sacred Feminine Ixchel appears in these folktales as an independent and strong young goddess whose choices drive the story. She is described as headstrong and self-directed, eloping to marry the Sun God on her own terms rather than out of obedience. When he responds to her refusal to submit by mistreating her, she asserts her agency by leaving him and choosing to go with the Morning Star God (Venus).
Even in this new relationship, Ixchel continues to insist on her autonomy, and when the Morning Star God tries to control and imprison her, she again frees herself and departs to join the Vulture God. When the Sun God finally takes her back and their quarrels shake the heavens with thunder and lightning, his jealous attempt to strip away her brilliant rainbow colors cannot erase her significance; she endures as the luminous moon goddess, her transformed radiance continuing to shape the sky and the cycles of life.
Ixchel Reborn According to myth, when Ixchel dies, dragonflies sing over her body for 183 days. After this long vigil, she returns to life and sets out to find her husband in his palace. Along the way, she encounters his brother, Morningstar, the radiant deity of dawn, desire, and celestial movement, and flirts with him, igniting Itzamná’s jealous rage. Itzamná, the sky god of wisdom, creation, and cosmic order, takes flight in fury to pursue her. Ixchel hides in her Temple of Night, a sanctuary of shadow, rest, and rebirth. From this sacred darkness, she continues her work as a divine nurturer, watching over the Earth’s pregnant women and sustaining the cycles of birth, healing, and renewal.
Colonial Contact Spanish imperial invader Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (1475-1517) represents one of the first Europeans to encounter Ixchel, characteristically extracting indigenous wealth through both physical and intellectual violence. In Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán (1566), Catholic archbishop Diego de Landa writes that the Spanish invaders
landed on Isla de las Mugeres, to which he gave this name because of the idols he found there, of the goddesses of the country, Aixchel, Ixchebeliax, Ixhunié, Ixhunieta, vestured from the girdle down, and having the breasts covered after the manner of the Indians. The building was of stone, such as to astonish them; and they found certain objects of gold, which they took.
Here, de Landa, another European who burned Maya manuscripts (codices) that contained irreplaceable knowledge of Maya religion, civilization, and history, ironically records both the contemporary beauty of Maya religion and the wanton destruction inherent to colonialism and imperialism. de Landa’s intellectual and religious imperialism turns the many goddesses of Maya religion, including “Aixchel” or Ixchel, into “the idols he found there.”
Although he recognizes the local fact that these female divine figures constituted “the goddess of the country,” using the term “idols” misogynistically seeks to erase the centuries of beloved religious culture that produced such beauty in stone “building” and “objects of gold” that could “astonish them.” As “false gods,” idols deserve only hatred and destruction for early modern Christians like de Landa and de Cordoba. In referring to Maya goddesses and their temples first as “idols,” he justifies their theft and destruction, which eliminates one of the ways Maya could worship. Calling it “Isla de las Mugeres” or the “Island of the Women,” and citing that as the reason de Cordoba seized the island, de Landa enacts an imperial misogyny, connecting what he sees as “false religion” to women. Such sexism remains a part of imperial practices across the globe.
👇🏽Video Captioning: “When you think of Mayan ruins, you probably think of Chichén Itzá as one of the most legendary archaeological sites in the Riviera Maya. Yet few people know that Cozumel also has extraordinary sites rich in Mayan history. The Cozumel Mayan ruins are impressive archaeological sites in the Caribbean . . . Gervasio was founded in 300 CE and remained occupied until 1450 CE until its decline. It was a sacred Mayan center, as well as a strategic site for trade and political development. It was a sanctuary for the goddess Ixchel and a mandatory visit for the Mayans at least once in their lives. San Gervasio consists of various architectural ensembles linked by a network of Mayan roads. The most prominent structure of these cosmo Mayan ruins is Canana. It is believed that this central building could have been the temple dedicated to the goddess Ixchel.”
As a senior English professor with training in religious studies, I approach the study of Maya material culture with both an academic lens and a commitment to respecting living cultures. My interpretations are informed by scholarship in literature, history, and ritual practice, but I recognize that my perspective is shaped by my positionality as an outsider to contemporary Maya communities. I aim to honor the cultural significance and ongoing relevance of these traditions, situating artifacts, iconography, and texts within their historical context while remaining attentive to the voices and experiences of those for whom these practices remain vibrant today. In presenting this material publicly, I strive for clarity, accuracy, and reflexivity, acknowledging the limits of my own perspective and the need for responsible, respectful scholarship.
Ardren, Traci. “Mending the Past: Ix Chel and the Invention of a Modern Pop Goddess.” Antiquity, vol. 80, 2006, pp. 25–37.
Cecil, Leslie. “Introduction.” Maya Worldview at Conquest. University of Colorado Press, 2009, pp. 1-15.
Chomat, Anne Marie, Bry Kring, and Luis Paiz Bekker. “Approaching Maternal Health from a Decolonized, Systemic, and Culturally Safe Approach: Case Study of the Mayan-Indigenous Populations of Guatemala.” Maternal Death and Pregnancy-Related Morbidity Among Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America: An Anthropological, Epidemiological, and Biomedical Approach. Springer, 2018, pp. 483–512.
Geller, Pamela. “She Gives Birth: Maya Midwives.” 2017. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/maya/home/maya-midwives-1
Guenther, Emily. “Ixchel and the Spiritual Yucatán.” Patheos Blog, August 2024.
“Ixchel: Mayan Goddess.” Antigüeña Spanish Academy, www. spanishacademyantiguena.com /blog/ 2021/07/10/ixchel-mayan-goddess/
“Ix Chel’s Coiled Snake Headdress: Sacred Symbol of Maya Women” Ancient Origins https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/mayan-women-and-coiled-snake-headdress-008519
Knowlton, Timothy. “The Maya Goddesses of Painting, Writing, and Decorated Textiles.” The Pari Journal, vol. 16. 2, 2015, pp. 31-41.
Losser, Sheryl. “Maya Moon Goddess Ixchel: a Benevolent Deity with a Dark Side.” Mexico News Daily. 11 July 2023. 20 para.
Miller, Mary, and Karl Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames and Hudson 1993.