With the coming of their anniversary, we would like to honor the Lord and Lady of the
Land of the Dead. Although the citizens of Scariya have been told snippets of their history as bedtime tales and legend, many of us have never heard the full story of how the couple came to be…
A long, long time ago, back when the Island of Scariya was home only to one small village across the ocean from Mexico, the first woman became pregnant with the first child. The villagers marveled at her growing belly, her welling breasts. She was regarded as the most beautiful woman in the village, so beautiful that all the other women became envious and began wanting babies as well. Thus, our ancestors created their predecessors.
However, on the day of the first recorded birth in Scariya, something much unexpected indeed happened. Instead of one child there were two. The mother and father rejoiced at their family’s good fortune. They named their children Tlaloc, for rain and fertility, and Michlantecuhtli, for beauty and death. But the second child had been stuck behind the first, not allowed the oxygen it required to survive. Just as he was given his name, Mictlantecuhtli expired. The mother and father wept and wept over the body of their dead child and the mother swore never to forgive herself for what she thought had been her fault as a mother: her inability to save her child.
This was the first time the village knew death first-hand. And as the first pregnancies had inspired more, after the death of the first villager, others began to follow. Not soon after did the mother and father begin to hear stories of their son from beyond the grave. Neighbors who had heard from dead family members told the man and woman of how their son guided the passed villagers to the Land of the Dead, Mictlan. The mother and father
swelled with pride from talk of their son, The Lord of Death.
As the years passed, the stories became less and less frequent until they became bedtime stories for mothers to tell their children at night, legends. Years passed without word from the deceased son. Then, on his thirteenth birthday, while the women was preparing for the celebrations, he appeared before her as a ghost. He said to her, I am very lonely, I have searched my lands for a companion but I have found no one that will be mine. They are always waiting on the living. I must have a bride like me, someone who has never felt life and so does not miss it.
At this the mother cried with joy. She had finally been given her redeeming task, a way to help the son she had failed. Quickly, she went out in search of a companion for her son.
But the task was harder for the mother than she had expected. After scouring the village for a woman willing to give up her unborn child and finding not one, the mother began to rethink her plan. If she could not find a woman willing, she would have to try to convince one. That night she laid down for bed and prayed to the spirit of her dead son, asking, “Oh dear son, how can I convince a woman to willingly give up her child?”
There is one woman you have not thought of yet mother, answered Death. She lives at the southern most point of the village and her name is Citlalli.
“Citlalli, the girl is barely a woman,” exclaimed the mother.
She is with child. Tomorrow bring her a gift. A dinner baked with hemlock.
“Poison? Oh, child I couldn’t kill that poor girl!”
You will never find a woman that will kill her own child. Kill the mother and with her comes the child. I will take care of them.
The mother was beside herself. The dead son’s voice had been desperate, pained. She saw no other option; she had to go through with the plan, to help her child. The next evening, after a day of baking and worry, the mother traveled to the southern-most point of the village to visit Citlalli.
“I heard there is a new little one lined up on the horizon!” she cried upon entering the house. “I’ve brought you a gift, very healthy, it will keep you strong.”
“Thank you,” Citlalli responded in her quiet way. The mother eyed her anxiously, staring down at the poisoned meal in her hands. She begged for a sign of good fortune. Something to confirm that this is what must be done. “It is a girl?” she offered the question. “Do you think maybe it’s a girl?”
“I do, I feel that it will be a girl. I’ve already named her.”
At this the mother brightened.
“What name have you chosen?”
The other woman flushed with embarrassment. “Mictlantecihuatl” That name was the sweetest word the mother had ever heard. It was her confirmation that it was fate this child and hers be together. She gave the woman her present and slipped away without another word.
Too excited to speak, allowing the woman and her child to be taken in the night by their new Lord.
Death has kept his promise to his mother and his new family. He will love and care for them for the rest of eternity. Mictlantecihuatl, the Lady of Death, grew up in Mictlan, without ever touching life, just as the boy had asked, and just as expected she was his perfect match. When she came of age they were married and she took over half the empire, and duties including watching over the bones of the dead and presiding over all ceremonies. The couple has succeeded in doing many great things for the living as well as the dead, one of the latest being the formal connection forged between the two worlds in the Mictlan Mortality Treaties. Today we honor them, and bid thanks.
