cihuateotl

cihuateotl: in aztec belief, the souls of women who died in childbirth accompanied the souls of dead warriors and followed the sun as it journeyed across the sky. they also became hummingbirds, after a certain period of time.
i am mildly obsessed with mesoamerican culture. there are lots of little survivals of it in the present day here and there--for example while pregnant my mother called me in a panic because there would be a lunar eclipse and she begged me to tie a bunch of keys to my waist to protect the child.

and i have quite a fixation on the the cihuateteo. it's a personal reason mostly--i had a post partum hemorrhage and almost died when my daughter was born.
so i like to think that if i had died i would have been a hummingbird, or perhaps even now escorting the souls of the dead soldiers who died in iraq.......but i digress.

this is one thing about second life--you can be whatever you want, and encode however many layers of meaning you wish, in the choices of the clothes you wear. and so the whole cihuateotl thing is one fashion tic i keep i coming back to over and over.

grady honored me much by photographing me dressed as a cihuateotl in a strange citizens post on strange pixels. for that one i wore the outfit on the right, which was sort of showgirlish. indeed, i wore a feather headdress and tailfeathers from a showgirl outfit, along with an aztec styled crown, loincloth and top from the Oshun set (more on that later) and Eris boots by Dark Eden, tinted ghungroo (ankle bells, like what yaqui deer dancers wear) by Zaara, and skull choker and earspikes by Mad about. I wore the Lost Gloom Stalker skin that i adore.

i have since worn several versions of the cihuateotl outfit. the elements though are the same:

• To Live and To Die Dia de los Muertos themed tats, which are brilliant, and my personal faves or the Mayan Dream tats by Garden of Ku
  
• the burnt bones skin by nomine, though later i was able to get a custom modification of that skin so that the face was less skull-like, with black lipstick
• Skull nose ring by AVZ
• Cenobite bracers by Tekel'li
  
• a hummingbird emitter, which i thought was so brilliant and cool
  
• Cortech Macahuitl and dagger, in obsidian and cyber versions. (by the freaking brilliant Beezle Warburton)
• sometimes i wear a cyberheart, which would have replaced the one i lost via sacrifice. [B] the Heart
• Needful Things Death Raven skirt

There are tons more of things that i have worn in my capacity of cihuateotl, but i suppose i will list them separately....................................

Uncredited items of clothing:
hair: Chill by AVZ, Anabel by Deviant Kitties
mekahooves and cellular pants by AVZ
Vampire trick pants and goth boots by Susie
Camisole from the Gamine girl set
Fishnet shirt from .....
Leeloo noir shirt from Nocturnal threads