Born when the world was new, Mictēcacihuātl (pronounced meek-teka-see-wahdl) belonged to a pre-human tribe of beings. As an infant, she was sacrificed to Mictlan, where she was raised to adulthood. Here she was the goddess of bones, death, and the dead. Following many cycles of evolution, this skeleton deity gained enormous powers, eventually becoming the Queen of the Underworld.  Her major duty is to guard the bones of all the earlier races.  Another of her responsibilities is to preside over the ancient festivals of the dead. Led by the goddess herself, the celebration of the dead originally lasted a month. Following the arrival of the Spanish and the subsequent conversion to Catholicism, this festival was blended to become the current Day of the Dead along with All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2). Her aim is not only honoring the dead but also making peace with our own mortality by treating death with familiarity instead of fear and dread.  She has a skull face with her mouth wide open in order to swallow the stars during the day.  Her body is sometimes depicted without flesh or with old and saggy breasts.  She wears only a skirt made of serpents along with various headdresses.  This goddess is hard to forget, after all, we are still aware of her after hundreds of years.