To weave on a back-strap loom is complex, not just because of the technical knowledge it implies, but also because of its social, ritual and mythical dimensions. On folio 254r of the Primeros Memoriales, the origins of this knowledge is related through the figure of Xochiquétzal, patroness of women and female weavers. This Mexican goddess is shown sitting at her loom, which is attached to the flowering tree of Tamoanchan, the place of primordial origins. As Muñoz Camargo describes, Xochiquétzal is confined to her temple, out of the sight of men, dedicated to spinning and weaving “premium and curious things” (in López Austin, 1994).
In the Mayan world, lunar goddess Ix Chebel Yax (Ix Chel / Goddess O) carries out functions similar to those of Xochiquétzal, since she is the patroness of painting and weaving, and other feminine tasks, including midwifery. Ix Chebel Yax is married to Itzamná, creator and solar god, which makes her the Mother Goddess, shown as a young woman (waxing moon) and as an elderly woman (waning moon). According to narratives:
The lunar goddess was the first woman on earth who wove—she was weaving when she caught the Sun’s attention— and therefore she is the patroness of the craft. Her relationship to weaving persists within the beliefs of the Lacandón people, in that, during her nocturnal trip through the sky, she carries her weaving rods to protect herself from possible jaguar attacks, which will be freed from the underworld at the end of this world (Thompson, 1975: 301).
The lunar complex the goddess is put into is large, but the elements of weaving present in rituals and pictorial sources reinforce her patronage of this practice: her headdress with needles and cotton balls, the golden spindle, sacred strings and needles, as well as raw cotton-wool, as described in the “Ritual de los Bacabes.” Spiders also have a symbolic role in the divination rituals led by the goddess’s priests, demonstrating that Ix Chel weaves the destiny of men on her loom.
In Mexico City’s Anthropology Museum, there is a sculpture from the Island of Jaina, Campeche, which represents a noble female weaver working on her loom, which is tied to a tree, in the company of a bird – maybe a tame parrot or a hummingbird, which is a mythical transfiguration of the Sun searching for the love of the Moon--. The representations of Xochiquétzal in Tamoanchan, included in the Primeros Memoriales (f. 254r.), show iconography that is similar to this sculpture: the goddess weaves under a flowering tree, as birds sit and sip around her.
In the Códice Madrid, several female deities and others related to death, are weaving on a back-strap loom, many tied to a tree. The symbolic and practical livelihood of weaving is related to the moon, to fertility, regeneration and the future of humankind, since “weaving is a work of creation, of birthing; therefore the goddesses linked to this work are also linked to childbirth” (Nájera, 2000: 45). It is no coincidence that the cord that connects the loom to the post is called an “umbilical cord”.