Xiuhcihuatl

Xiuhcihuatl
Xiuhcihuatl seen from the northwest.
Highest point
Elevation	7,456 meters
Prominence	7,322 meters
Isolation	324 kilometers
Parent peak	Xumarunanaka
Geography
Location	Xiuhcihuatl Preserve, Three Republics Federal Zone, Zacapican
Parent range	Mixtepemec
Climbing
First ascent	June 7, 1803
Easiest route	North Ridge route

Xiuhcihuatl is a dormant stratovolcano located in the Austral Mixtepemec range straddling the triple-border of the Aztaco, Anamictlan and Tlaximallico Republics in the south of the United Zacapine Republics. The main summit sits at an elevation of 7,456 meters above sea level and is just 329 kilometers from Angatahuaca, making the suburbs of the city visible on the horizon from the top of Xiuhcihuatl. It is the second highest peak in the country behind Xumarunanaka in the Zacaco Republic, although it has the most significant prominence of any Zacapine mountain peak of 7,322 meters. Xiuhcihuatl is the southernmost non-extinct volcano in the Mixtepemec range, sitting at the meeting point of the Anamictlan and Aztaco peninsulas. The mountain peak can be seen from the Makiran ocean and the Matlayahualoyan.

The first recorded ascent of Xiuhcihuatl was accomplished in 1803 by the three man team led by Yej Denaa, a native of Xallipan and renowned mountaineer of the time. However, later ascents would gradually reveal a much longer history of climbers on the mountain going back centuries. Archeological evidence found on the mountain suggests the first ascent of Xiuhcihuatl may have taken place as early as the 1170s during the era of classical Angatahuaca. Numerous pre-modern ascents of the mountain are alluded to in contemporary records, corroborating the authenticity and provenance of the artefacts retrieved from the mountainside. Xiuhcihuatl has strong religious associations in Cozauism and has held significant cultural value to the people of southern Oxidentale for millennia, cementing the mountain into the southern Zacapine identity.

The ascent of Xiuhcihuatl is considered to be one of the greatest and most dangerous feats of mountaineering a climber can achieve. In the Mountaineering Club of Zacapican, it is generally considered to be a more impressive accomplishment than the ascent of Xumarunanaka despite the latter being the taller of the two and the only peak in Zacapican that surpasses 8,000 meters of elevation and therefore requiring supplemental oxygen to summit safely. This is largely due to the extreme prominence of Xiuhcihuatl, which is more than double that of Xumarunanaka. Xiuhcihuatl is also one of the most glaciated mountains in the country, receiving plenty of precipitation from the polar storms which strike its southern and western faces every year. This is stark contrast to its cousins in the northern Mixtepemec range, which like in the arid zones of inner Cuauhtlaco and western Xallipan and receive relatively little snow, forming few if any glaciers on their slopes. The final element contributing to Xiuhcihuatl's difficulty are the storms themselves, which are formed are over the southern Makrian or at times the polar Amictlan ocean itself and propelled by the polar jet stream, strike the mountain directly and are only made worse by the immense prominence which rapidly thrusts air upwards and causes weather events to develop quickly and severely on its slopes. During such storms, wind speeds regularly surpass 240 kilometers per hour, reaching as high as 400 kilometers per hour during the record setting storm responsible for the 2001 disaster which claimed 7 lives on the slopes of Xiuhcihuatl.

Geology

Xiuhcihuatl is primarily igneous in character, forming from a volcanic complex at the southern end of the geologically active Mixtepemec range. Deeper deposits found at lower altitudes on the mountain are of a marine origin and are sedimentary in nature, suggesting that the volcanic extrusion that formed the upper mountain passed and mixed with layers of older sedimentary material. All three of the principal peaks of Xiuhcihuatl, including its main summit, are formed from lava domes, while large portions of the mountainside consist of lava flows over top of both igneous breccias and pyroclastic material as well as the older sedimentary layers lower down the mountain.

Mythological significance

The name Xiuhcihuatl, translating as "Lady of Fire" in Nahuatl, is that of an important figure in the pantheon of Cozauism. Xiuhcihuatl is considered to be the consolidated form of many female deities which were associated or became associated through syncretism to the central Cozauist god, Xiuhtecuhtli, usually as consort. The mythology of Xiuhcihuatl was established in the mid-9th century, around the time that the geological record attests to a rise in volcanic activity of the mountain which now bears the deity's name. It is believed the association was created as the mountain began a series of on and off eruptions which would last more than a century and a half, many of which would have been plainly visible on the horizon from the medieval core of Angatahuaca, the cult center of Xiuhtecuhtli and the headquarters of the Temple. The mythology of Xiuhcihuatl would grow in direct association to the volcano.

In early Cozauist mythology, Xiuhcihuatl was the consort of the central deity Xiuhtecuhtli, the heavenly creator god and the lord of fire and time. Many variations of the myth abound in records from across southern Zacapican as the figure of Xiuhcihuatl came to be heavily syncretized with other female deities of the region, however the Cozauist myth would cover the ultimate fate of this figure and in so doing impose a degree of narrative order over the diverging myths. The death myth of Xiuhcihuatl holds that the consort of the creator god was a willing sacrifice, surrendering her immortal form in order to bring an eternal flame of life into the core of the earth-monster, the being whose dismembered body makes up the world in Cozauist mythology. This sacrifice would forever exile Xiuhcihuatl from the heavens, binding her to the earth and isolating her in the netherworld below. Xiuhcihuatl would then become the mother of volcanoes, her essence manifesting as heavenly fire pouring from the stones of the earth's surface beneath which she is entombed. As Cozauism progressed into a more exclusive monotheistic cosmology, Xiuhcihuatl came to be interpreted as an aspect of the central deity rather than a separate entity.

History

Archeology

The extreme conditions of the mountain precluded the construction of any temple structure or significant monument on the summit of Xiuhcihuatl, but did not prevent pilgrims from attempting the ascent to her upper peaks. The recovery of artefacts on the slopes of the mountain, carbon dated to as early as the 12th century, provide evidence of multiple attempts at the summit by the pre-modern peoples of southern Zacapican.

It is believed that many significant artefacts and additional evidence connected to the medieval ascents of Xiuhcihuatl have likely been lost due to the mountain's volcanism, which has significantly remodeled major sections of the mountain and could have destroyed artefacts and remains or else covered them in several meters of ash and volcanic debris. One theory suggests that some artifacts which have been found in the streams and rivers fed by meltwater from Xiuhcihuatl's slopes, such as the copper bells found in the Tzilinilli river in 2011, may in fact have been buried under ash and snow for centuries later to be dislodged by flowing meltwater and carried downstream where they would be found in the riverbed.