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Threatening old man with two hammers?

7th Dec 2023

Mixtec goddess holding magic mushrooms, Codex Vindobonensis

This looks at first glance like an angry character brandishing a couple of hammers in a gesture of aggression. In fact, there’s nothing threatening in the scene it comes from at all. It’s a woman and she’s holding up a pair of magic mushrooms - a classic Mesoamerican hallucinogenic... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

She features in a mythological scene on page 24 of the pre-invasion Codex Vindobonensis which now resides in Austria.
Her calendrical name is One-Eagle; she’s one of several Mixtec deities appearing in a ceremony commemorating the very first appearance of the Sun, ie the world’s primeval dawn. Most (nearly a dozen) of the characters in the scene hold magic mushrooms (teonanacatl in Nahuatl). Intriguingly, in a recent study (2022) Dr. Manuel A. Hermann Lejarazu (member of our Panel of Experts) traces a parallel between the myth - specifically the Huichol version - and the consumption of hallucinogens. In the Huichol myth ‘the gods came out of the sea and began a long journey in search of the Hill of Dawn. Once there, the gods ate peyote and experienced a vision which coincides with the birth of the Sun’ (our translation).

Source/reference:-
• Lejarazu, Manuel A. Hermann (2022) ‘Códice Vindobonensis: edición facsimilar’, Arqueología Mexicana, Special Edition no. 103, June 2022, p. 47.

Image source:-
• Image from the Codex Vindobonensis scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1974.

Learn more about ancient Mesoamerican hallucinogens...