Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture. She corresponds, more or less, to Toci Yoalticitl "Our Grandmother the Nocturnal Physician", an Aztecearth goddess inhabiting the sweatbath, and is related to another Aztec goddess invoked at birth, viz. Cihuacoatl. In Taube's revised Schellhas-Zimmermann classification of codical deities, Ixchel corresponds to the Goddess O.
Identification
Referring to the early 16th-century, Landa calls Ixchel “the goddess of making child”. He also mentions her as the goddess of medicine, as shown by the following. In the month of Zip, the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by the physicians and shamans, and divination stones as well as medicine bundles containing little idols of "the goddess of medicine whom they called Ixchel" were brought forward. In the Ritual of the Bacabs, Ixchel is once called "grandmother". In their combination, the goddess's two principal qualities suggest an analogy with the aged Aztec goddess of midwifery, Tocî Yoalticitl. Ixchel was already known to the Classical Maya. As Taube has demonstrated, she corresponds to goddess O of the Dresden Codex, an aged woman with jaguar ears. A crucial piece of evidence in his argument is the so-called "Birth Vase" , a Classic Maya container showing a childbirth presided over by various old women, headed by an old jaguar goddess, the codical goddess O; all have weaving implements in their headdresses. On another Classic Maya vase, goddess O is shown acting as a physician, further confirming her identity as Ixchel. The combination of Ixchel with several aged midwives on the Birth Vase recalls the Tzʼutujil assembly of midwife goddesses called the "female lords", the most powerful of whom is described as being particularly fearsome.
Meaning of the name
The name Ixchel was in use in 16th-century Yucatán and amongst the Poqom in the Baja Verapaz. Its meaning is not certain. Assuming that the name originated in Yucatán, chel could mean "rainbow". Her glyphic names in the codices have two basic forms, one a prefix with the primary meaning of "red" followed by a portrait glyph, the other one logosyllabic. Ix Chel's Classic name glyph remains to be identified. It is quite possible that several names were in use to refer to the goddess, and these need not necessarily have included her late Yucatec and Poqom name. Her codical name is now generally rendered as "Chak Chel".
Ixchel and the moon
In the past, Ix Chel was sometimes assumed to be identical to the Classic Maya moon goddess because of the Moon's association with fertility and procreation. Iconographically, however, such an equation is questionable, since what is considered to be the Classic Maya moon goddess, identifiable through her crescent, is always represented as a fertile young woman.
An entwined serpent serves as Ixchel's headdress, crossed bones may adorn her skirt, and instead of human hands and feet, she sometimes has claws. Very similar features are found with Aztec earth goddesses, of whom Tlaltecuhtli, Tocî, and Cihuacoatl were invoked by the midwives. More in particular, the jaguar goddess Ixchel could be conceived as a female warrior, with a gaping mouth suggestive of cannibalism, thus showing her affinity with Cihuacoatl Yaocihuatl "War Woman".
Mythology
Ixchel figures in a Verapaz myth related by Las Casas, according to which she, together with her spouse, Itzamna, had thirteen sons, two of whom created heaven and earth and all that belongs to it. No other myth figuring Ixchel has been preserved. However, her mythology may once have focused on the sweatbath, the place where Maya mothers were to go before and after birthgiving. As stated above, the Aztec counterpart to Ixchel as a patron of midwifery, Tocî, was also the goddess of the sweatbath. In myths from Oaxaca, the aged adoptive mother of the Sun and Moon siblings is finally imprisoned in a sweatbath to become its patron deity. Several Maya myths have aged goddesses end up in the same place, in particular the Cakchiquel and Tzʼutujil grandmother of Sun and Moon, called Bʼatzbʼal in Tzʼutujil. On the other hand, in Qʼeqchiʼ Sun and Moon myth, an aged Maya goddess who would otherwise appear to correspond closely to the Oaxacan Old Adoptive Mother, does not appear to be connected to the sweatbath.
Cult of Ixchel
In the early 16th century, Maya women seeking to ensure a fruitful marriage would travel to the sanctuary of Ix Chel on the island of Cozumel, the most important place of pilgrimage after Chichen Itza, off the east coast of the Yucatán peninsula. There, a priest hidden in a large statue would give oracles. To the north of Cozumel is a much smaller island baptized by its Spanish discoverer, Hernández de Córdoba, the "Island of Women" "because of the idols he found there, of the goddesses of the country, Ixchel, Ixchebeliax or Ix Chebel Yax, Ixhunie or Ix Uʼh butie ?, Ixhunieta or Ix Uʼh jeta, only vestured from the girdle down, and having the breast covered after the manner of the Indians". On the other side of the peninsula, the head town of the Chontal province of Acalan venerated Ixchel as one its main deities. One of Acalan's coastal settlements was called Tixchel "At the place of Ixchel". The Spanish conqueror, Hernán Cortés, tells us about another place in Acalan where unmarried young women were sacrificed to a goddess in whom "they had much faith and hope", possibly again Ix Chel.
