Editing Tlaltecuhtli (section)

== Gender debate ==
[[File:Tlaltecuhtli_stone_carving.jpg|alt=|thumb|Masculine anthropomorphism of Tlaltecuhtli found in Tenochtitlan (ca. 1500), wearing a male ''maxtlatl'' loincloth and Tlaloc facemask]]
One of the largest modern debates surrounding Tlaltecuhtli is over the deity's gender. In English, "tlal-" translates to "earth," and "tecuhtli" is usually rendered "lord." However, "teuctli" (like most words in Nahuatl) has no gender, despite normally being used to describe men or male gods. There are notable exceptions—for example, the goddesses [[Ilamatecuhtli]] and Chalmecatecuhtli.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Tlaltecuhtli|last=Lopez Lujan|first=Leonardo|publisher=Sextil Editores|year=2010|location=Mexico City|pages=101}}</ref> In the Huehuetlahtolli collected by [[Horacio Carochi]] in the early 17th century (known as ''The Bancroft Dialogues''), it is clear that "tēuctli" does not mean "lord" or "señor." Those are just approximations to the genderless Nahuatl title. A better rendering is "esteemed personage" or "noble." In fact, in ''The Bancroft Dialogues,'' older women are addressed as "notēcuiyo" or "my noble" several times.<ref name="Bancroft">{{Cite book|title=The Art of Nahuatl Speech: The Bancroft Dialogues|last=Kartunnen|first=Frances|publisher=UCLA Latin American Center Publications|year=1987|location=Berkely}}</ref> 

While Tlaltecuhtli's name may be interpreted as masculine, the deity is most often depicted with female characteristics and clothing. According to Miller, "Tlaltecuhtli literally means 'Earth Lord,' but most Aztec representations clearly depict this creature as female, and despite the expected male gender of the name, some sources call Tlaltecuhtli a goddess. [She is] usually in a ''hocker'', or birth-giving [[Squatting position|squat]], with head flung backwards and her mouth of flint blades open."<ref name=":0" />

Other scholars, like [[Alfonso Caso]], interpret this pose as a male Tlaltecuhtli crouching under the earth with his mouth wide open, waiting to devour the dead.<ref name="Caso, Alfonso 1978"/> While Tlaltecuhtli is usually portrayed as female, some depictions are clearly male (though these distinctions may at times arise from the Spanish-language gendering process).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Producer of the Living, Eater of the Dead: Revealing Tlaltecuhtli, the Two-Faced Aztec Earth|last=Henderson|first=Lucia|publisher=Archaeopress|year=2007|pages=5}}</ref> H.B. Nicholson writes, "most of the available evidence suggests that... the earth monster in the ''mamazouhticac'' position was conceived to be female and depicted wearing the costume proper to that sex. A male aspect of that deity was also recognized and occasionally represented in appropriate garb—but was apparently quite subordinate to the more fundamental and pervasive female conception."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nicholson|first=H.B.|date=1967|title=A Fragment of an Aztec Relief Carving of the Earth Monster|journal=Journal de la Société des Americanistes|volume=56|pages=81–94|doi=10.3406/jsa.1967.2272}}</ref>
[[File:Tlaltecutli_tiny_painting.jpg|thumb|Feminine anthropomorphism of Tlaltecuhtli in the [[Codex Tudela]] (ca. 1540), wearing a women's ''[[huipil]]'' tunic|alt=]]
This ambiguity has prompted some scholars to argue that Tlaltecuhtli may have possessed a dual gender like several other Mesoamerican primordial deities. In Bernardino Sahagún's Florentine Codex, for example, Tlaltecuhtli is invoked as ''in tonan in tota'' —"our mother, our father"—and the deity is described as both a god and a goddess.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|title=Florentine Codex|last=de Sahagún|first=Bernardino|year=1590|pages=13|chapter=Book 6}}</ref> Rather than signal hermaphroditism or androgyny, archaeologist Leonardo Lopez Lujan suggests that these varying embodiments are a testament to the deity's importance in the Mexica pantheon.<ref name=":4" />