Sculpture of a Huastec goddess

The female figures share similar characteristics, such as a rigid posture, hands over their stomachs, bare breasts, and usually wear a skirt and large headdress. The headdress is generally composed of a rectangular section with a conical cap on top and a fan-shaped crest, as shown on this sculpture.
The creases underneath her breasts allude to motherhood. Fertility is a recurring theme in Huastec art, represented by stone sculptures of female goddesses, elderly men and phalluses.

These female deities are related to Tlazolteotl, an earth goddess which the Spanish associated with filth and carnal sin. Her name comes from tlazolli, which means 'filth' in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica (Aztecs), and teotl, a broad term for 'deity'. Thought to consume filth and produce healthy life, she was venerated by the Mexica, who conquered the Gulf Coast (Huastec territory) in the fifteenth century, during the reign of Motecuhzoma I (1440-69). Aspects of Huastec civilisation were communicated to the Spanish by the Mexica.

The Mexica king consecrated a new extension of the Templo Mayor (Great Temple) with a ceremony in which a large number of Huastec captives were sacrificed in honour of Xipe Totec, the god of fertility. Several gods revered by the Mexica were worshipped earlier in the Gulf Coast and other areas, and were added to the Mexica pantheon.