of femininity, yet in Teotihuacan it was more common for males to be depicted in short kilts. The profile figures in the Tepantitla mural carry small bags, which men are known to carry, as seen in depictions of priests in Maya art. Mandell asserts that the ambiguity and combination of masculine and feminine attributes should be seen as a mixed-gender performance, not subjected to the Western binary model of gender. Various Interpretations within the Archaeological Community In a 2006 article in Ancient Mesoamerica, Zoltán Paulinyi argues that the Great Goddess or Spider Woman is "highly speculative" and is a result of fusing up to six unrelated gods and goddesses. In "The Olmec Mountain and Tree Creation in Mesoamerican Cosmology", Linda Schele states that the primary mural represents "either a Teotihuacan ruler or the Great Goddess". In her 2007 book, The Teotihuacan Trinity, Anna Headrick is cautious in identifying the murals as portraits of the Great Goddess, preferring the term "mountain-tree". Headrick identifies the tree which sprouts from the headdress as the Mesoamerican world tree. Similar deities Some American Indians, such as the Pueblo and Navajo, revered what seems to be a similar deity. Referred to as the Spider Grandmother, she shares many traits with the Teotihuacan Spider Woman. See also Cihuacoatl (goddess) Cultural depictions of spiders Goddess worship Notes References (1992) "The Great Goddess Reconsidered", in Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan", Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (2002) "The Great Goddess at Teotihuacan" in Andrea Stone Heart of Creation: the Mesoamerican World and the Legacy of Linda Schele'', University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, . . Catalog of an exhibition held Dec. 16, 1995—Feb. 25, 1996 at the Art Museum, Princeton University, and Apr. 14—June 9, 1996 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Teotihuacan Mesoamerican deities Mythological spiders