Cipactli, the Primordial Monster

The myth

Cipactli is the great primordial monster shaped like a crocodile or caiman that swam in the waters before creation. According to the Historia de los mexicanos por sus pinturas, the gods made the earth from the body of this crocodile-fish. In other versions the same role falls to Tlaltecuhtli, and the two figures blend: that is why the image of mouths at every joint, which the sources give to Tlaltecuhtli, is also linked to Cipactli. Cipactli is also the first of the twenty signs of the ritual calendar, the one with which everything begins.

Why it has this power

A Level 8 Epic with 2900 ATK and 2700 DEF: a strength older than the world. Water is the primordial seas; Moon and Leviathan, the night before light and the monster of the deep. It enters the field only through the Rite of the Primordial Sea, with the Caiman-Warrior, the Warden of the Apanohuaya River and the Turquoise Double-Headed Serpent.

Did you know

In the codices, Cipactli sometimes appears as a hybrid of crocodile, fish and other animals.

Connections

Where to get it

• Ritual: Summoned by the ritual Rite of the Primordial Sea, with the materials Caiman-Warrior of the Sacred Lake, Warden of the Apanohuaya River, Turquoise Double-Headed Serpent.
• It never joins the collection: you summon it mid-duel, by fusion or ritual.

Sources

1. Animales de la creación: cipactli (Arqueología Mexicana) — Manuel A. Hermann Lejarazu
2. Tlaltecuhtli — World History Encyclopedia — Mark Cartwright
3. Mitos de los orígenes en Mesoamérica (Arqueología Mexicana) — Miguel León-Portilla