The Aztec people of ancient Mexico had in their pantheon a vampiric fertility goddess named Toci. She was particularly attentive to the corn crops. In the eleventh month of the Aztec calendar, Ozomatli, a woman who had been preselected would be ritually sacrificed and skinned. The hide was then donned by the temple priest at the high point of the ceremony. If Toci did not receive her sacrifice, there would be famine.

Source: Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, 151; Markman, Flayed God, 188-190; Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine, 194-195; Salas, Soldaderas, 2, 7-8, 24

The Nahuatl-speaking descendants of the Aztec people of central and southern Mexico have in their culture a living VAMPIRIC WITCH called a tlaciques. There is no way to divine or prevent this witch from being born, and prior to her first menstrual cycle when her blood lust develops, there is no way to predetermine if a young girl is a tlaciques (see LIVING VAMPIRE). The only visual sign that may betray her nature is that as she matures she will develop a limp. Usually when her family discovers that there is a tlaciques amongst them, they will protect her secret out of both fear and a bizarre sense of shame. If anyone in her family kills her, he will carry the curse through his blood and pass it on to his children.

Upwards of four times a month the tlaciques will need to feed and her usual prey are infants, family members who may reveal her secret, or people whom she has quarreled with. First the witch will detach her upper body from her lower so that she can shape-shift into a buzzard, CORPSE CANDLE, cat, dog, flea, or turkey. Her lower body is laid out to form a cross on the ground. While in her CORPSE CANDLE guise, the tlaciques has a hypnotic ability that she can use to cause people to commit suicide. Before she can enter into the home of her intended victim, the tlaciques must have first flown over his home in the form of a buzzard traveling from north to south and then from east to west. Once inside the home, she will glow briefly right before she attacks.

Tlaciques form pacts with one another so as not to infringe on each other’s hunting grounds. This is done because the amount of blood that one tlaciques needs to survive is not so great as to be noticed, but should two or more start hunting in the same area their presence would be noted and they all would be at risk of being discovered and killed.