Water Stories: Water plays a central role in folklore from around the world. It often appears as a place to gain knowledge, a place of mystery, and of danger, as well as a life-sustaining element. This series is a way to look at some of the folklore relating to water.
Artist: Angie Hinojos
This is a project created through funding from the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and Seattle Public Utilities.
It is 6’ high and 135’ long—located in Wallingford.
Axolotl:
In Aztec mythology the Axolotl was a manifestation of the god Xolotl. He ran from his brother, Quetzalcoatl, to avoid being sacrificed, hiding first among the corn as a double stalk of maize. Maize was the most important staple in the Aztec diet. It was eaten at almost every meal, and by all social classes, and has been grown for thousands of years. It was corn that the gods gave to sustain the first humans in the Fifth Sun (current) cycle, giving them strength to survive. When Xolotl was discovered, he ran to hide in field of maguey, turning himself into a double maguey as a disguise. The maguey plant provided food, its fibers were used to make cloth and paper, and it was an ingredient in soap for its antibacterial properties, and is the basis for an important drink called pulque. When Xolotl was found in the maguey, he ran again, and hid in a new hiding place in the swamp and took on his water form as an axolotl. He was eventually caught and killed. He may signify the duality, or double nature of things. He was associated with Venus and was the last to die at the hands of the sun, creating the Fifth era. The symbols on the border of the piece depict the symbols for water, and for a water monster called ahuizotl that was considered a predator, using a child’s cry to lure prey to the rivers where they lived. If someone got close, they would use the little human hand on their tail to drag them in to the water to eat their eyes, teeth, and nails. There was a belief that those who died this way would destined for paradise. The jug symbol signifies water, or atl.
Chalchiuhtlicue
In Aztec culture, Chalchiuhtlicue symbolized the purity and preciousness of spring, river, and lake water that was used to irrigate the fields. She was the older sister of the rain god Tlaloc. The tassles on the edge of her shawl , or quechquemitl, likely represent the inverted glyphs for rain. Her name means Jade Her Skirt, and she wears jade ornaments and headdress, which consists of several broad bands trimmed with amaranth seeds. One of her attributes is the serpent, so I have depicted with a serpent headpiece; sometimes her belt is a rattlesnake. She has small fish around her, as she is sometimes thought to have caused a giant flood causing the Fourth Sun to be destroyed; she allowed some people to turn to fish to survive. Along the border of the piece are water symbols that relate to her. The ollin symbol represents movement or motion, referencing the four preceding ages, and the fifth, current age. Scholar Gabriel S. Estrada states that "as cosmic movement, ollin is all movements at once that are both orderly and chaotic. Paradoxically, it defies human understanding even as it motivates all human movement.". The eyes are stars, the fire, heat, brings water from the air, elements in counterpoint to each other.
Flying Fish
The flying fish has dual elements of air and water depicted. I envisioned the flying fish as a means of moving through both space and time. Accessing universal geographies through thought and learning, creating a slipstream that moves thought as well as air. The flying fish is ever in motion, its geophysical reach only limited by our capacity to imagine, create, and discover. The shells along the border represent organic symmetry.
Leviathan
The Leviathan is a depiction of an embrace—earth and sea, land and water, the duality of our environment and the great forces that exist in nature. It is an acknowledgement of the power of land and sea and sky, and the beauty it holds. The triple spirals along the border are very ancient symbols that mimic natural forms, and I am using it to represent the movement of sun, moon, stars, and planets, as well as meteorological movement, in the form of wind spirals, water vortices, and patterns of energy.
Plankton
Plankton are usually microscopic, but they also include larger species like some crustaceans and jellyfish. Scientists classify plankton in several ways, including by size, type, and how long they spend drifting. But the most basic categories divide plankton into two groups: phytoplankton (plants) and zooplankton (animals). This piece is meant to celebrate the almost invisible plankton that provides the building blocks of life in our aquatic ecosystems and that nurtures life at all levels. The oxygen and nutrients they produce feed the earth. They exist in all of our waterways, saltwater and freshwater.
La Llorona
La Llorona is a weeping woman who cries near rivers to attract unsuspecting victims to their death. She cries for her children, who she has killed with a dagger or by drowning. Her persona is associated with several Aztec goddesses, one being Cihuacoatl who would appear in white, at night, weeping, as a foretelling of war. She is also associated with Chalchiuhtlicue, who was known to overturn boats and drown people. The symbols next to her are the tecpatl, or sacrificial knife that was made of flint and obsidian. Flint was created in heave, or in the stars, and is also associated with Chalchiuhtlicue. The eye-like symbols represent the stars. The Tecpatl was also associated with Mictlan, the underworld. The cempazuchil/marigolds are often associated with a scent that guides the dead home once a year. Some of the other symbols represent sacrifice, and death as well as the merging of cultural traditions.
Hydra
This design was based on a medieval drawing of a hydra, which was a serpentine aquatic monster from Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was at the entrance to the underworld. It had poisonous breath and possessed many heads. It could only be subdued by using flaming arrows. When one head was cut off, it immediately regrew. In my depiction, the toxicity of the hydra is balanced with other natural elements from the marshy lands where it would have lived. Perhaps the negative effects humans have had on the environment can be reversed and halted by making more positive environmental decisions. The crown signifies victory in this task.
Troll
The Old Norse word for troll meant “fiend”. Trolls were known to live near water, under bridges, in natural environments, blending in with nature. They disliked church bells, which drove them out of specific areas according to folklore. They were afraid of lightning, as they may have been struck in past ages by Thor who hunted them with lightning bolts. Large boulders in the landscape were attributed to being thrown there by angry trolls. The trollcross is a symbol of protection against trolls. Trolls are said to sometimes grow trees and other vegetation on their bodies. In folklore wood grouse, or ‘trollbird’ was a troll woman turned into a bird. A feather from the wood grouse was considered lucky.
Wishing Well
The wishing well comes from the Norse mythology about Odin, who, in an attempt to gain knowledge, plucked out his own eye and threw it into a well where the waters gave cosmic knowledge. The keeper of the well then dipped his horn into the water and gave Odin a drink. Odin also threw himself on his spear Gungnir, and hanged himself on the tree of life Yggdrasil, to gain knowledge of other worlds and understand runes. He was accompanied by Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory), two ravens who flew over the world each day and reported everything they saw. It was said that a feather from a raven could unlock another’s heart. Odin rides the eight-legged Sleipnir across the sky and through the underworld, at great speed. He was also accompanied onto the battlefield by two wolves, Geri and Freki. His spear is called Gungnir, which was so well made that it could strike any target.
Green Flash
The ship is based on a mirage I saw in California many years ago. It was a ship floating in the sky, upside down, far out above the ocean. The ship in my depiction is right side up, but the applied images are not. This piece has to do with making sense of the world, charting one’s own course spatially, but also in time through the very specific memories we carry. The calendar and compass on the border of the piece signify guidance. The green flash depicted here is a phenomenon that I have also seen at the last moment of sunset over the ocean. It signifies that elusive magical moment that comes through observation of nature, often in times of introspection.
Life
I spent many hours with my brothers as a child catching frogs and watching tadpoles swim through vernal pools. This piece is a memory of late spring days in the marsh, the shrill cut whistle of the redwing blackbirds, cattail fluff floating on a light breeze, worms on the soft wet patches of earth, and shoots pushing up into the sun. Frogs tell us a lot about the health of their habitats, they remind us with their song when it is about to rain, they develop habits and frequent the same spots when those places are healthy environments. Even so, nature always has surprises for us, like unseasonable snowfall, each crystal lattice its own unique sculpture. The symbols on the frog relate to childhood wishes sent on arrows of thought, staying out in the creek past nightfall and hearing my father’s clean cold whistle over the treetops, calling us home.
