CHAPTER I

THE

GODS OF MEXICO

By LEWIS SPENCE

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL

INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

1923

TO

MY WIFE,

WITH DEEPEST GRATITUDE

AND AFFECTION

PREFACE

This book deals exclusively with the religion of the peoples of ancient

Mexico. With the history and archæology of that country I am not

concerned in these pages, unless where they have a bearing upon the

main subject. By “Mexico” I mean that region of North America lying

between the Tropic of Cancer and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Thus only

passing reference to the religion of the Maya of Yucatan or the Quiche

of Guatemala is made in the way of occasional comparison.

I have thought it best at the outset to make these points clear beyond

the possibility of misapprehension. It was formerly usual to regard the

entire tract occupied by Central American civilization from the Tropic

of Cancer to Nicaragua as one and indivisible in its manifestations.

But it is now clear that the type of advancement peculiar to the more

northerly portion inhabited by the Nahua (Aztec and Chichimec) peoples

of Mexico proper presents numerous and striking divergencies from the

more southerly though related Maya civilization of Yucatan and

Guatemala. Regarding the priority of these two cultures no doubt

exists. The Maya was greatly the more ancient. But during the century

preceding the conquest of Mexico by Cortéz it had been subjected to

Nahua immigration and influences, especially as regards its religious

beliefs. It is therefore necessary to exercise caution in the

identification of Nahua or Mexican with Maya myths and divine forms,

and with this in view I have directed my researches more especially to

an examination of the deities and ritual practices of the Mexican area,

in the hope that once the fundamental beliefs of this better-known

region have been ascertained, the results arrived at may be applied

with some measure of confidence to the obscure field of Maya belief. It

seemed to me also essential, if progress were to be made, to apply a

more intensive method of investigation than has hitherto been deemed

possible or desirable to the first origins of the Mexican gods, and it

is especially with the results obtained by this means that I am

concerned rather than with the conclusions of others.

I have chosen The Gods of Mexico as the title of this book, as its

contents refer more particularly to the development and general

description of the deities of ancient Anahuac than to the questions of

ritual, priesthood, or religious architecture. It has seemed to me

that, once the fundamental nature of the gods has been made clear, when

the multitudinous and conflicting details regarding them have been

sifted, collated, and reduced to order, more will have been done to

discover the whole purport of Mexican religion than if investigation

had been directed in particular to ritual practice. But that I have not

neglected the question of ritual is proved by the extended notices of

the festivals I have appended to the description of each of the gods. I

have, however, confined my descriptions and criticisms of ceremonial to

these, and have refrained from the illustration of the sacraments of

life and death, baptism, burial, and the like, as it is my hope to be

able to deal with the whole subject of ritualistic practice among the

Mexicans at a future date.

Many authorities, even should they sympathize with the endeavour set

forth in these pages, will question its timeousness. Our knowledge of

the religion of ancient Mexico, they will say, is still too vague and

too fragmentary to permit of the assemblage and criticism of its

material. Such a charge it is impossible to gainsay. Yet the

bitter-sweet experience of twenty years of meditation among the ruins

of the Mexican pantheon has emboldened me to attempt its partial

restoration by the aid of such reconstructive capacity as I possess. My

reasons for essaying this rather adventurous undertaking are twofold.

The first is, that although the time is scarcely ripe for it, the

venture may inspire more skilful investigators to address themselves to

the task of research in a subject that has been unaccountably neglected

in this country. The second is the hope that those who come after me in

the study of Mexican religion may, as the result of my labours, be

spared the many weary years of groping that have fallen to my lot, and

be enabled to commence their journey from the point where I now stand.

Although political and financial conditions in Mexico frequently arouse

a passing agitation in the minds of British people, the antiquities of

that extraordinary land, various as Greece and mysterious as Egypt,

have failed to appeal to them with the same degree of interest. We have

not yet, perhaps, quite recovered from the amazement with which in our

own day we have seen the secret gates of the East unlocked and the

prodigies of Mesopotamia and the endless dynasties of the Nile emerge

therefrom. Yet an archæology less venerable, but no less notable,

pleads with us for recognition from a continent so closely associated

with the spirit of modernity that we can scarcely believe in its

ability to present us with the credentials of respectable antiquity.

American scientists, however, have in recent years successfully

addressed themselves to the problems of Isthmian research, and the

antiquaries of Germany and France have, in certain respects, even

improved upon their endeavours. Great Britain alone remains insensible

to the lure of old Mexico, and small indeed is the band of workers that

she has given to this department of archæology.

No manifestation of the life and thought of ancient Mexico so well

deserves the attention of British students of antiquity as its

picturesque if bizarre religion. Our position in folklore is

pre-eminent; indeed we may with justice claim the reconstruction of

traditional science as due to the efforts of British scholarship. As

the English word “folklore” is in world-wide use, so is the terminology

of the science it denotes replete with English expressions; yet in

British works which deal with traditional lore the Mexican analogies

employed are almost invariably quoted at second-hand, sources of the

most unsatisfactory description are drawn upon to illustrate Mexican

belief, and it is obvious that the few modern treatises which have

sought to explain this most involved of all mythologies are not

sufficiently taken advantage of by authorities on folklore.

To those who possess even an elementary acquaintance with the study of

Mexican religion this will cause no surprise, for the initial

difficulties which confront even the experienced antiquary who desires

to gain a working knowledge of its principles are sufficiently

discouraging. In all likelihood the quest is sooner or later abandoned

in despair of acquiring that fundamental information from which it is

possible to proceed to a more profound knowledge of the subject. The

native languages, familiarity with which is desirable, are complex and

difficult of mastery. The paintings or codices which depict the gods

present a riot of symbolic intricacy sufficient in itself to damp

enthusiasm. Many years must be spent in the study of a system of

symbolic painting, to which a specially qualified section of the

Mexican priesthood dedicated itself in the full knowledge of a

mythological scheme at the nature of which we can but guess. It is,

above all, necessary to become thoroughly conversant with an

overwhelming body of Spanish Colonial literature, which must be handled

with the greatest discretion, owing to its vague, contradictory, and

essentially untrustworthy character. Lastly, an acquaintance with

manuscript sources, obscure and difficult of access, is quite as

indispensable, and these, indeed, are among the most valuable of the

adjuncts to a knowledge of Mexican belief.

By far the most eminent and successful among modern writers on Mexican

mythology and ritual is Professor Eduard Seler, of Berlin, who, owing

to the generosity of the Duc de Loubat, has been enabled to publish

monographs upon the principal Mexican hieroglyphical paintings or

codices. In these he has done much for the elucidation of the involved

symbolism in which the native MSS. abound, and has greatly added to our

knowledge of the divine forms represented in their grotesque pages.

Elaborate photogravure reproductions of these, the papyri of Mexico,

have also been published, superseding the older and less accurate

copies in the great collection of Lord Kingsborough. In his Gesammelte

Abhandlungen, [1] too, a work quite encyclopædic as regards its scope

and aim, Professor Seler has approached almost every problem presented

by Mexican archæology. But his work might have been of greater value

had he been mindful of the difficulties which the subject presents to

the non-specialist reader. Indeed, the technicality and aridity of his

general method often render his output comprehensible to few but the

“senior wranglers” of the study.

American students of ancient Mexico and Central America have almost

entirely confined themselves to the examination of sites and monuments.

In France, M. Beuchat has provided students with an admirable handbook

in his Archéologie Américaine, which, if too general in its purport and

marred by a lack of linguistic knowledge, is still valuable as an

elementary manual to American antiquity. The essays of Lehmann, De

Jonghe, and Preuss have provided the student with translations of

manuscript material hitherto closed to him, or have smoothed his way to

a clearer comprehension of the difficulties connected with the Mexican

calendar. The best modern English handbook on Mexican archæology is

that by Mr. T. Athol Joyce, of the British Museum, but its lack of

references is a serious drawback and the material it contains suffers

from compression.

The method of my investigation of the divine forms of Mexico is set

forth in the introductory paragraph immediately preceding that part of

the book which deals with the gods more especially. Regarding the

tonalamatl and the Calendar, I have thought it best to relegate this

difficult and obscure subject to an appendix, in order that it should

not interfere with the main current of proof. In dealing with the

Codices throughout I have employed the pagination of Seler rather than

that of Kingsborough, as referring to the more modern and greatly

preferable editions of the Duc de Loubat, except in cases where a

manuscript is to be found in Kingsborough’s work alone. It is my

sincere hope that the bibliography at the end of the book as well as

that to be found at the conclusion of the appendix on the tonalamatl

will lighten the labour of students of Mexican religion, whose

co-operation in the discovery of errors I most cordially invite.

The illustrations in this book are, for the most part, taken from the

native Mexican codices or paintings, and from representations of the

gods in stone or pottery. It has, of course, been impossible to furnish

every picture or representation alluded to in the text, but these, in

their entirety, will be found in the excellent coloured reproductions

in collotype published by the Duc de Loubat, full particulars of which

are given in the bibliography of the codices on pages 378–381. These

reproductions can be consulted in many of the greater libraries,

especially in those connected with the Universities. I have preferred,

in many cases, to furnish the student with those representations of the

gods which he would have found it more or less difficult to procure.

The numbers of the pages or sheets attached to the illustrations refer

to the places where the respective figures can be found in the

reproductions of the Duc de Loubat.

In conclusion, I have to thank my daughter, who took infinite pains in

transcribing from books and treatises difficult of access, in the

British Museum and the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, and who

sacrificed much of that time which young people usually devote to

amusement in order that she might help me in a difficult task.

L. S.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The type and evolution of Mexican religion—The antiquity of Mexican

religion—The literature of Mexican religion: I, The native codices;

II, The native writings; III, Native art-forms; IV, Writings of the

Spanish conquerors of Mexico—The origins of Mexican

religion—Evidence of early religion in Mexico—Deification of the

elements of growth—Evidences of primitive influences—Fetishtic

origin of gods—Animal gods—Growth of the rain-cult—The necessity

for human sacrifice—The later elements of Mexican religion—Cultural

elements of Mexican religion—The Quetzalcoatl cult—The cult of

obsidian—Unity of religious conception throughout Mexico

pp. 1–35

CHAPTER II

COSMOGONY

The “ages” of Mexican cosmogony—The making of the earth—The

peopling of the earth—Creation of the sun and moon—The Historia de

los Mexicanos—Deluge myths—The “Coxcox” fallacy—The fall of the

gods—Mexican conceptions of the universe—The five regions of the

world: The Tree of the East; the Tree of the North; the Tree of the

West; the Tree of the South; Tlaxicco; Tlapcopa; Uitznauac or

Uitzlampa; Ciuatlampa; Mictlampa—The supporters of the heavens—The

Aztec heavens: Tlalocan; Homeyoca—Mictlampa as Hades pp. 36–64

CHAPTER III

THE GREAT GODS

Method of treatment—Uitzilopochtli—Tezcatlipocâ—Quetzalcoatl

pp. 65–145

CHAPTER IV

THE CREATIVE DEITIES

Tonacatecutli—Tonacaciuatl pp. 146–152

CHAPTER V

DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

Introductory—Tlazolteotl—Chicomecoatl—Cinteotl—Ciuacoatl—Coatlicue—

Xochiquetzal—Macuilxochitl or Xochipilli—Xipe—Xilonen—Itzpapalotl—

Zapotlantenan—Ilamatecutli pp. 153–233

CHAPTER VI

THE GODS OF RAIN AND MOISTURE

Introductory—Tlaloc—Chalchihuitlicue—Uixtociuatl—Atlaua—Napatecutli

—Matlalcuêyê—Opochtli pp. 234–267

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRE-GODS

Xiuhtecutli—Chantico—Quaxolotl pp. 268–284

CHAPTER VIII

THE OCTLI OR PULQUE (DRINK) GODS

General—Tezcatzoncatl—Tepoxtecatl—Patecatl—Mayauel—Totoltecatl—

Macuiltochtli—Totochtin—Tomiauhtecutli pp. 285–299

CHAPTER IX

STELLAR AND PLANETARY DEITIES

Tonatiuh the Sun-God (Piltzintecutli)—Metztli or Tecciztecatl the

Moon-God—Mixcoatl, Iztac Mixcoatl or Camaxtli—Tlauizcalpantecutli—

Coyolxauhqui—The Tzitzimimê pp. 300–326

CHAPTER X

GODS OF DEATH, EARTH, AND THE UNDERWORLD

Mictlantecutli—Mictecaciuatl—Tepeyollotl pp. 327–335

CHAPTER XI

VARIANTS OF THE GREAT GODS

Itztli—Itztlacoliuhqui—Paynal—Yacatecutli pp. 336–343

CHAPTER XII

MINOR DEITIES

Xolotl—Ixtlilton—Omacatl—The Ciuateteô or Ciuapipiltin pp. 344–358

APPENDIX

THE TONALAMATL AND THE SOLAR CALENDAR

Day-signs—Model tonalamatl—The day-gods—Gods of the “weeks”—Lords

of the night—Lords of the day-hours—Tonalamatl festivals—

Recapitulation—The calendar round—The nemontemi—The Venus

period—Short bibliography of works relating to the tonalamatl

pp. 359–371

A CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEXICAN RELIGION pp. 372–381

GLOSSARY pp. 382–383

INDEX pp. 384–388

ILLUSTRATIONS

Nephrite Figure of a Death-god Frontispiece

FACING PAGES

Colossal Statue of Coatlicue 14, 15

Statue of Coatlicue 16, 17

The Great Calendar Stone of Mexico 38

Symbols of the “Suns” in Mexican Cosmogony 40, 41

The Trees of the World-quarters 58, 59

The Tree of the Middle-quarter 60

Uitzilopochtli 66

Coyolxauhqui 67

The Red and Black Tezcatlipocâs 92

Tezcatlipocâ in Various Forms 93, 98

Altar of Skulls to Tezcatlipocâ 99

Quetzalcoatl and Tlauizcalpantecutli 118

Quetzalcoatl and the Death-god 119

Forms of Quetzalcoatl 120, 121

Tonacatecutli-Tonacaciuatl 121

Forms of Tlazolteotl 156, 157

Forms of Chicomecoatl 170

Cinteotl 171

Ciuacoatl 180

Forms of Ciuacoatl 181

Xochiquetzal and her Symbols 188

Forms of Xochiquetzal 189, 190

Stone Figures of Macuilxochitl 196, 197

Forms of Macuilxochitl 198

Forms of Xochipilli 199

Pottery Figure of Xochipilli 200

Forms of Xochipilli 201

Forms of Xipe 204

Stone Image of Xipe 205

Forms of Xipe 208

Itzpapalotl 222

Itzpapalotl (Stone of Aristides Martel) 223

Xilonen and Zapotlantenan 223

Forms of Tlaloc 236, 237, 240

Chalchihuitlicue 258

Chalchihuitlicue and Tlauizcalpantecutli 259

Chalchihuitlicue and Uixtociuatl 260

Forms of the Tlaloquê 261

Xiuhtecutli and Tlauizcalpantecutli 268, 269, 272

Xiuhtecutli and Chantico 276

Ixcoçanhqui and Chantico 277

Tepoxtecatl 292

Patecatl, with Octli Emblems 293

The Octli-gods 298, 299

Totoltecatl 299

Forms of Tonatiuh 300

Mexican Idea of Sacrifice to the Sun-god 301

Planetary Deities 304

Forms of Mixcoatl 310, 311

Forms of Tlauizcalpantecutli 320

Tlauizcalpantecutli and Victim 321

Forms of the Underworld Deities 328

Statue of an Octli-god 329

Variants of the Great Gods 336

Xolotl and Tlaloc 344

Minor Deities 345

The Lords of the Night-hours 364

NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF MEXICAN

The pronunciation of Mexican names presents at first some little

difficulty. The letter X is invariably pronounced as sh, so that

Mixcoatl and Mexitli are, viva voce, Mishcoatly and Meshitlee, the

final tl being pronounced as tl followed by a short y, although the

natives in many parts of the country articulate it with a definite

clicking sound, unapproachable by a European. The names of the more

important gods are pronounced as follows:

Uitzilopochtli = Wit-zil-o-potchtly

Tezcatlipocâ = Tez-catly-pocā

Quetzalcoatl = Quetzal-co-at-ly

Xipe = Shee-pay

Chalchihuitlicue = Chal-chĕĕ-wĕĕt-lēē-kway.

Most of the others are comparatively simple of pronunciation. The ch

sound is pronounced as in Spanish, i.e. hard, as in “thatch.”

THE GODS OF MEXICO

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

THE TYPE AND EVOLUTION OF MEXICAN RELIGION

If, like the necromancers of old, we possessed the power to summon the

shades of the dead before us, and employed this dread authority to

recall from the place of shadows the spirit of a member of the

priesthood of ancient Mexico, in order that we might obtain from him an

account of the faith which he had professed while in the body, it is

improbable that we would derive much information regarding the precise

significance of the cult of which he was formerly an adherent without

tedious and skilful questioning. He would certainly be able to

enlighten us readily enough on matters of ritual and mythology,

calendric science and the like; but if we were to press him for

information regarding the motives underlying the outer manifestations

of his belief, he would almost certainly disappoint us, unless our

questionary was framed in the most careful manner. In all likelihood he

would be unable to comprehend the term “religion,” of which we should

necessarily have to make use, and which it would seem so natural for us

to employ; and he would scarcely be capable of dissociating the

circumstances of his faith from those of Mexican life in general,

especially as regards its political, military, agricultural, and

artistic connections.

Nor would he regard magic or primitive science as in any way alien to

the activities of his office. But if we became more importunate, and

begged him to make some definite statement regarding the true meaning

and import of his religion ere he returned to his place, he might,

perhaps, reply: “If we had not worshipped the gods and sacrificed to

them, nourished them with blood and pleasured them with gifts, they

would have ceased to watch over our welfare, and would have withheld

the maize and water which kept us in life. The rain would not have

fallen and the crops would not have come to fruition.” [2] If he

employed some such terms as these, our phantom would outline the whole

purport of the system which we call Mexican religion, the rude platform

on which was raised the towering superstructure of rite and ceremony,

morality and tradition, a part of which we are about to examine.

The writer who undertakes the description of any of the great faiths of

the world usually presupposes in his readers a certain acquaintance

with the history and conditions of the people of whose religion he

treats. But the obscurity which surrounded all questions relating to

Mexican antiquity until the beginning of this century formerly made it

essential that any view of its religious phase should be prefaced by an

account of the peoples who professed it, their racial affinities, and

the country they occupied. This necessity no longer exists. The ground

has been traversed so often of late, and I have covered it so

frequently in previous works, [3] that I feel only a brief account of

these conditions is necessary here, such, in a word, as will enable the

reader to realize circumstances of race, locality, and period.

The people whose religious ideas this book attempts to describe were

the Nahua of pre-Colombian Mexico, a race by no means extinct, despite

the oft-repeated assertions of popular novelists, and which is now

usually classed as a branch of the great Uto-Aztecan family of the

North American Indian stock. They spoke, and their descendants still

speak, a language known as the Nahuatl, or Nahuatlatolli (“speech of

those who live by rule” or “by ritual observance”). At the era of the

Spanish invasion of their country in 1519 they had succeeded in

overrunning and reducing to their dominion practically all that part of

modern Mexico which lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Isthmus

of Tehuantepec. They were, in all probability, immigrants from the

north, and their art-forms, no less than their physique and beliefs,

have led certain writers to form the opinion that they came originally

from the neighbourhood of British Columbia, or that they had a common

origin with the Indian tribes which inhabit that region at the present

time.

However this may be, the first Nahua immigrants would appear to have

entered the Valley of Mexico at some time during the eighth century of

our era. But the Aztecâ, part of a later swarm of Nahua, do not seem to

have descended upon it until the middle of the thirteenth century, or

to have founded the settlement of Mexico-Tenochtitlan until about the

year 1376. At the period of their arrival in the valley they were a

barbarous tribe of nomadic hunters, wandering from place to place in

search of fresh hunting-grounds, precisely as did many North American

Indian tribes before reservations were provided for them. Gradually, by

virtue of their superior prowess in war, they achieved the hegemony of

the Plateau of Anahuac, which boasted a tradition and civilization at

least five hundred years old. These they proceeded to assimilate with

marvellous rapidity, as is not infrequently the case when a race of

hunters mingles with a settled agricultural population. Indeed, in the

course of the century and a quarter which intervened between the

founding of Mexico and the period of the Spanish Conquest, they had

arrived at such a standard of civilization as surprised their Castilian

conquerors. When the Aztecâ, abandoning their wandering life, finally

settled in the Valley of Anahuac, upon the site of Tenochtitlan, now

the city of Mexico, they embarked upon a series of conflicts with their

neighbours, which ended in the complete subjection of these peoples.

The races over whom they exercised a kind of feudal sway were many and

diverse, and only the more important of these can be mentioned here. To

the north dwelt the hunting Chichimecs, a related people, and the

Otomi, a semi-barbarous folk, probably of aboriginal origin, and

speaking a distinct language. To the west dwelt the Tarascans, whose

racial affinities are unknown, or, at least, dubious. South of the Rio

de las Balsas were situated the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, whose language

somewhat resembled that of the Otomi and who possessed a larger measure

of civilization. On the East Coast were found the Huaxtecs and

Totonacs, races of Maya origin, and south-east of these lay the Olmecs,

Xicalancas, and Nonoualcas, of older precedence in the land. Beyond the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec were found the Maya, a people of relatively high

civilization, whose origin is obscure, and into the question of whose

relationship I do not propose to enter in this place.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MEXICAN RELIGION

Until the beginning of the present century most Americanists held that

Mexican civilization and consequently Mexican religion were the outcome

of but a few generations of native progress. It is true that the Nahua

people had behind them a relatively brief history of national and

tribal life, but modern research has shown that they were undoubtedly

the heirs of a civilization having early foundations and of

considerable achievement and complexity, the religious aspect of which

had arrived at a high state of development. [4] Evidences of the

archaic character of this faith are rapidly accumulating, but many

years must yet be dedicated to the examination and comparison of the

data concerning it before it is possible to speak with any degree of

certainty regarding the causes which contributed to its formation and

evolution.

Although we must necessarily regard Mexican religion as having had a

progressive history spread over many generations, we are at present

almost ignorant of the gradual changes which accompanied its growth. An

effort will be made to outline the probable nature of these mutations,

but the endeavour will not receive any great measure of assistance from

the abundant but chaotic and unclassified material amassed by

Americanists during the last twenty years, which in its present

condition is not of much value as regards this particular branch of the

subject, but which it is the writer’s intention to employ, so far as it

is capable of illustrating the question before us.

THE LITERATURE OF MEXICAN RELIGION

It is necessary at this stage to deal briefly with the sources of

Mexican religious history. A literature, bewildering in its scope and

variety, has grown up around the subject of Mexican antiquity as a

whole, and it is perhaps well for the student if he approaches it with

only a partial realization of the spacious character of the material he

must review. I have thought it best in such a work as this to relegate

most of the bibliographical matter to an appendix, where an endeavour

has been made to supply the student with a trustworthy catalogue of

such manuscripts and works as are essential to the study of Mexican

religion. It is hoped that this may prove of guidance and assistance

and spare much initial toil. But for the present I will confine my

remarks to such general observations upon the sources from which we

partly glean our knowledge of the ancient Mexican faith as will serve

the immediate purpose. These sources are four in number: (I) The native

codices or paintings; (II) the native annals; (III) native art-forms in

architecture, sculpture, pottery, and mural painting, depicting gods

and other divine beings; and (IV) the writings of the Spanish

conquerors of Mexico.

(I) The Native Codices.—These are paintings executed by native Mexican

artists upon agave paper, leather, or cotton. Through the misguided

zeal of the early Spanish religious authorities, who regarded them as

of diabolic character, only some twelve of these remain to us, the

greater number of which possess a mythological or religious

significance. In their pages we find representations of many of the

principal deities of the Mexican pantheon, as well as illustrations of

several passages in Mexican myth, and they frequently depict the

tonalamatl or priestly Book of Fate, with its highly complex symbolism.

[5] Close familiarity with these manuscripts is indispensable, as they

constitute one of the few original sources of our knowledge of the

aspect, costume, and insignia of the Mexican deities. All of them have

been handsomely, if expensively, reproduced, and these are detailed in

the bibliography.

Here it is only necessary to remark upon the several theories which

have regard to their place of origin. Dr. H. J. Spinden, in his

valuable Study of Maya Art, objects that “most of the detailed accounts

of religious beliefs and ceremonies that have come down to us refer

primarily to the Valley of Mexico, while nearly all the really

elaborate codices of a religious nature come from either the

Zapotecan-Mixtecan area or from the Maya.” [6] We are not here

concerned with the Maya manuscripts, and with regard to the Zapotec and

Mixtec examples we have the assurance of Seler, [7] which is founded

upon critical evidence of value, that an entire group of these

manuscripts—and that by far the most important, the Codex Borgia

group—“belongs to a Mexican-speaking people” who inhabited the

districts of Teouacan, Cozcatlan, and Teotitlan del Camino, and who,

though separated from the Nahua of the Valley of Anahuac at an early

period, yet in great measure retained the ancient beliefs common to

both. Nearly all of the deities represented in this group of

manuscripts so closely resemble in their aspect, costume, and general

symbolism the drawings and descriptions of gods known to have been

worshipped in the Mexican area proper, as to make it positively certain

that they represent the same divine beings with merely trifling

differences of detail due to local environment. The separation of the

Nahua of the Plateau of Mexico and those of the more southerly region

was of such duration as to justify the belief that their religious

ideas had diverged considerably. But the subsequent conquest of the

southern area by the Northern Nahua must have resuscitated old common

beliefs among their kindred in the south, and weakened the ideas they

had adopted or developed in that environment. This is proved by the

considerable variation in type between the oldest southern pottery

representing what are presumably divine forms and the pictures of the

gods in the later manuscripts of the Codex Borgia group.

(II) The Native Writings.—These “annals,” as they are sometimes called,

the work of natives who wrote in Spanish, constitute a mine of

aboriginal information of nearly equal value with that contained in the

codices, but considerable discrimination is necessary in using them in

view of the tendency of their authors to corrupt traditional material

when inspired by patriotic or other motives. This, however, manifestly

does not apply with equal force to accounts of a mythical or ritual

nature and to historical events, which offer a much greater temptation

than the former to scribes manifestly ignorant of the virtues of

literary integrity. The Mexican annals are of two classes: those which

represent the historical or traditional relics of native communities,

such as the Annals of Quauhtitlan, also known as the Codex

Chimalpopocâ; and those which are the work of educated Mexicans or

half-breeds, prone to magnify the splendour of the ancient races.

Ranking almost as a third or separate class are the sacred songs or

hymns included in the Mexican MS. of Sahagun’s Historia General, which

that most unwearied of workers received at first hand from approved

native scribes. The several native writings will be found described in

the appendix, and the hymns, or rather a translation of them into

English prose, will be met with in the descriptions of the several

deities to which they apply.

(III) Native Art-forms.—Mexican architectural motifs, mural paintings,

and especially sculpture and pottery, frequently afford reliable

material upon which to form conclusions regarding the aspect and

costume of the gods, and reproductions of the most important of these

illustrate the descriptions of the several Mexican deities.

(IV) Writings of the Spanish Conquerors of Mexico.—If the

representatives of the Church in Mexico must be condemned for their

narrow and illiberal action in destroying all native manuscripts and

paintings bearing upon the ancient religion of the country, certain

more enlightened individuals among them laboured strenuously to remove

this reproach by their zealous, if frequently unskilful, attempts to

reconstruct a knowledge of the popular faith by unremitting researches

into native tradition. This attitude met with but little countenance

from their ecclesiastical superiors, and at times they laboured under

conditions the reverse of favourable for the collection of traditional

material. But it would be ungrateful not to pay a meed of respect to

the self-sacrifice of those enlightened and resourceful men, but for

whose endeavours our knowledge of Mexican antiquities would be all the

poorer.

Undoubtedly the most valuable collection of evidence relative to the

Mexican religion compiled by a Spanish churchman is the Historia

General of Bernardino Sahagun, whose work, composed with scholarly care

and an almost prophetic knowledge of the correct methods to be pursued

in the collection of traditional material, was completed about the

middle of the sixteenth century, but remained unpublished until 1830.

This work has been described so repeatedly as to require no further

mention here, and other notable works are included in the bibliography.

Some allusion should also be made here to the works known as the

Interpretative Codices, compiled by Pedro de Rios and other monks, who

retained the services of native painters to execute drawings of Mexican

deities or, as some believe, drew these figures themselves, the

symbolism and general meaning of which they endeavoured to make plain

and interpret, only too often in the light of their knowledge of the

Scriptures.

THE ORIGINS OF MEXICAN RELIGION

The question of the origin of Mexican religion, like that of the

civilization of which it was perhaps the most salient characteristic,

has afforded matter for ardent controversy from the period of the

discovery and conquest of the country until the present day. But, even

so, it is still unsafe to dogmatize upon Mexican religious origins. At

the time of the Conquest we observe Mexican religion as a highly

complex faith, with a ceremonial of the most elaborate nature, a

priesthood with nicely defined gradations in office, and a pantheon

which had obviously been formed by the collocation of the deities of

provincial and dependent tribes and peoples around a nucleus composed

of the national and departmental gods of the Aztecâ. The great

temple-area of Mexico-Tenochtitlan harboured a bewildering array of

gods, many of which possessed separate shrines and ministrants. An

intensive examination of the alien elements represented, however, tends

to prove the identity of many of them with the gods of the Aztecâ, a

similarity which, in numerous instances, was manifest to that people

themselves and which was the result of tribal affinity or basic

resemblance in religious conception. Nevertheless a residuum of

unrelated deities remained, which might, perhaps, be accounted for by

positing the existence of two markedly different cultures or tendencies

in Mexico, barbarous and civilized. This may imply that the opposing

influences which gave rise to these variations were alien to each other

racially, or it may indicate that, whereas one had remained in an

environment of barbarism, the other had developed and enlarged its

theological and even its mythical conceptions in the light of the

necessities of an advancing material civilization. Whence the seeds of

that civilization came is, as has been said, matter of controversy. The

existence of a system of monachism in Mexico would seem to indicate a

non-American origin. Elements common to both aspects of this

interesting faith were sufficiently numerous in Mexican religion. Thus

the so-called Chichimecs, or rude hunters of the steppes to the north

of the Valley of Mexico, retained in their pristine form the simple

beliefs and the ungraded pantheon, which in the case of the more

advanced tribes of cognate origin rapidly took shape as a great State

religion under the influences of a more complex social system, the

stimulus of alien religious conceptions, and above all, of a priesthood

skilled in the reduction of theological and mythical material to dogma.

This cult, although composed of elements perhaps at first conflicting

in aim and character, had yet arrived at a comparative degree of

homogeneity and had evolved an intricate and exacting ritual and a

symbolism of great richness and artistic complexity, the extensive and

bewildering nature of which can be verified by a cursory inspection of

the native codices.

EVIDENCES OF EARLY RELIGION IN MEXICO

The myths which relate to the earliest religious influences in Mexico

are for the most part connected with the pre-Aztec “Toltec”

civilization and the more ancient and sacred sites of Tollan and

Teotihuacan. They chiefly refer to a god or culture-hero called

Quetzalcoatl, whose myths and attributes will be described elsewhere in

this work, and who was regarded as the prototype of the Mexican

priesthood and one of the inventors of the tonalamatl or Book of Fate.

The type of religion founded by him differs greatly from that practised

by the Mexicans at the period of the Conquest, as it eschewed, or was,

perhaps, originally innocent of, human sacrifice or ceremonial

cannibalism, and practised purification and penance by the drawing of

blood. In certain myths its founder is described as a native of the

country, in others as the offspring of divine beings, while still

others regard him as a foreigner who introduced his cult from the east.

It is noteworthy that this cult is closely connected with monachism [8]

and that in later times it was, perhaps, regarded as more intimately

bound up with pietistic and “civilized” ritual practice than that of

any other Mexican deity. Ultimately, the myths relate, Quetzalcoatl

left the country because of the machinations of “enchanters.” [9] This

may mean that the older and less barbarous cult was forced into a

secondary place by the ruder and more popular beliefs of a tribe of

lower culture, but there are evidences that the religion of

Quetzalcoatl assuredly assisted in the building-up of the rain-cult of

Mexico. In any case little information is to be gleaned from the myth

of Quetzalcoatl for our present purpose of illustrating the primitive

type of Mexican religion, and it must probably be regarded as pointing

to the existence of an early monachism and a developed ritual in

ancient Mexico. [10]

The myths relating to the great tribal gods, if faithfully examined,

assist us in forming a definite idea of the character of early

religious conceptions in Anahuac. The hymns to the gods are, perhaps, a

surer indication of the trend of popular faith and probably date from a

more archaic period than do the myths, which, as we possess them,

nearly all exhibit signs of priestly alteration. In several of these

chants we assuredly arrive at the whole significance of Mexican

religion, which in its essence, and as seen at the Conquest period, was

nothing more than a vastly elaborated rain-cult, similar in its general

tendency to that still prevalent among the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico

and Arizona, yet broader in outlook, of a higher complexity and

productive of a theology and an ethical system of greater

sophistication and scope. The religion of the Pueblo peoples is,

indeed, the poor and degenerate descendant of the bizarre and

picturesque ritual of the Mexicans, or, more probably, had a common

origin with it. Through the researches and personal exertions of many

well-equipped Americanists the entire ritual of this modern pluvial

cult is now well known and deserves the closest study from students of

Mexican religion, as providing them with comparative and analogical

material of the first importance. [11]

We shall keep on the trail of a very definite clue if we attempt to

descry in such evidences as we possess of archaic Mexican faith the

signs of an incipient rain-cult, having its origin in a settled

agricultural existence. If we glance at the general characteristics of

the numerous members of the Mexican pantheon, we find that very readily

and quite naturally they group themselves into three great classes: (a)

creative deities, which may be regarded as the outcome of late

theological speculation, and which may, accordingly, be passed over in

this place; (b) gods of growth; and (c) gods developed from specific

objects and deified heavenly bodies, some of which latter were

developed from gods of the chase. The “original” deities of Mexico

would seem, therefore, to have presided over vegetable growth and

conferred on their votaries good luck in the hunt. But as time passed,

these latter also took on the attributes of gods of the cereal and

vegetable food-supply, and, indeed, often seriously contested the

status of the true growth-gods in the elaborate nature of the symbolic

vegetal ceremonial with which their festivals were celebrated.

It is not surprising that the Valley of Mexico became the centre of a

cult of which the appeal for rain was the salient characteristic. A

copious supply of rainfall for the purposes of irrigation is, indeed, a

necessity to the Mexican agriculturist, and a dry year in ancient

Anahuac brought with it famine and misery unspeakable. Inexpressibly

touching are the fervent prayers to Tlaloc, god of water, that he

should not visit his displeasure upon the people by withdrawing the

pluvial supply. “O our most compassionate lord ... I beseech thee to

look with eyes of pity upon the people of this city and kingdom, for

the whole world, down to the very beasts, is in peril of destruction

and disappearance and irremediable end ... for the ridges of the earth

suffer sore need and anguish from lack of water ... with deep sighing

and anguish of heart I cry upon all those that are gods of water, that

are in the four quarters of the world ... to come and console this poor

people and to water the earth, for the eyes of all that inhabit the

earth, animals as well as men, are turned towards you, and their hope

is set upon you.” [12]

DEIFICATION OF THE ELEMENTS OF GROWTH

The elements of growth, in the mind of primitive man, are four in

number, the earth, grain, rain, and solar heat, and it is not

remarkable that all of these came to be regarded as deified powers, and

were latterly personalized in anthropomorphic form. It does not appear

that the sun was at first looked upon as an agency of growth. There is,

indeed, proof that in early times he was not regarded as of any

importance from a calendric point of view, and that the time and

festival-counts were designed upon a lunar basis. [13] It is not

unlikely that, in a region where his torrid heat, if unaccompanied by

rainfall, resulted in famine, he was at first regarded, if not

unfavourably, at least with no special predilection. If this conclusion

is correct, and we can afford to discount solar influence in the

primitive Mexican cultus—or rather that adopted by the aboriginal

peoples on embracing a settled agricultural existence—there remain to

us the three elements of earth, grain, and rain from which to

reconstruct the prototypes of the Mexican pantheon.

In Mexican myth the earth is represented as a monster known as

cipactli, the pictures of which have given rise to the assumption that

it is either a crocodile, a swordfish, or a dragon. We shall probably

not err if we place it in the last category and see in it that great

earth-monster common to the mythologies of many races, and which is

most conveniently called the “earth-dragon.” [14] This sign cipactli

became the first in the tonalamatl or Book of Fate, where it is

connected with the creative deities and the Earth-mother, who was known

by many names. Circumstances exist which seem to lend colour to the

assumption that, as in other countries, the Mexican Earth-mother had at

one time been regarded as forming the earth, the soil. At the terrible

and picturesque festival of the Xalaquia (“She who is clothed with the

sand”), the sacrificed virgin was supposed to enrich and recruit with

her blood the frame of the worn-out goddess, who had been, says Seler,

“merged in the popular imagination with the all-nourisher, the

all-begetter, the earth.” [15]

Perhaps the best evidence that the idea of the Earth-mother was

associated with the conception of the earth-dragon is afforded by the

colossal stone figure of Coatlicue, one of her manifestations, which

once towered above the entrance to the temple of Uitzilopochtli in

Mexico and is now housed in the Museo Naçional in that city. In this

figure, as in a similar if less massive statue from Tehuacan, the

characteristics of the cipactli earth-animal obtrude themselves in a

wealth of scale, claw, and tusk, which although frequently described as

serpentine, is only partially so, and shows traces that more than one

idea was in the mind of the artist who chiselled its symbolic

intricacies. In the latter of these sculptures the appearance of

ferocity is most marked and is accompanied by the same dragon-like

claws on hands and feet. In the mythologies of many lands the

Earth-mother is represented as ferocious, insatiable, as slaying those

who take part in her amours, as a riotous and outrageous demon,

unnatural and destructive in her lusts and appetites, and it would seem

that her Mexican phase throws light upon the reasons for this savage

wantonness. In the sculpture first alluded to, and in the carving on

its base, we can perceive a close resemblance to the earth-monster of

the Maya peoples, especially as represented in the carvings at Copan

and in the Temple of the Cross at Palenque. These afford almost

irrefragable proof of the correctness of the supposition regarding the

fusion of the concepts of the earth-beast and the earth-mother which

has been outlined. [16]

The deification of the grain is so universal a phenomenon as to require

but little explanation, especially in regard to a country where it

formed the staple alimentary supply. It appears to have received divine

honours in many districts in Mexico and to have been worshipped under a

variety of names, but there was little difference between the

characters of these several cults, and the absence of this is well

exemplified by the readiness with which they amalgamated and the fusion

of their central figures.

The deification of the rain, as apart from the idea of a mere rain-god,

is perhaps a circumstance of more novelty to the student of Comparative

Religion. Tlaloc, the god of rain or moisture, is one of the most

striking examples of this process in any mythology. A god of great

antiquity, his pluvial character is obvious and undoubted. But he is

also the life-giver, the nourisher, who from his home in the green

uplands of Tlalocan sends the vivifying rains to fill the deep fissures

in the hard, cracked soil of the Valley of Anahuac. In the courtyard of

his dwelling stood four jars of water, typifying the four different

“kinds” of rainfall which corresponded to the four quarters of the

heavens, and these were distributed by his progeny, the Tlaloquê. There

is the best evidence that the aspect of Tlaloc was evolved from the

idea of the rain itself. His face is formed from the interlacings of

two serpents, his face-paint is black and blue, or dirty yellow like

the threatening cloud which holds the thunder-shower. The garments he

wears are splashed with ulli rubber-gum, evidently intended to

symbolize rain-spots. Indeed, his robe is called the anachxechilli or

“dripping garment,” and is frequently depicted as set with green gems

to represent the sparkling raindrops. Few rain-gods, even the Vedic

Indra himself, whom Tlaloc somewhat resembles, are so frankly symbolic

of the moisture which falls from above. [17] But his serpentine or

dragon-like form renders it probable that, although he was regarded in

later times as a personification of the rain, in earlier times he was

looked upon as the “Water Provider,” the great serpent or dragon which

dwelt among the hills and which must be defeated by a hero or demi-god

ere it will disgorge the floods which ensure the growth of vegetation.

EVIDENCE OF PRIMITIVE INFLUENCES

We may now examine the elements just described for traces of the early

constituents of religion. The conception that the earth itself was a

monster gifted with life is evidently the outcome of a belief in

“animism” or “personalization,” and merits little further notice

because of its obvious character. Although the grain was also

personalized, there are evidences of its “fetishtic” nature in early

times. The great stone figure of Coatlicue already alluded to, besides

affording evidence of the dragon-like character of the Earth-mother,

exhibits many of the attributes of the primitive fetish manufactured

from bundles of maize, large beans representing the eyes and pumpkin

pips the teeth, while strips of paper form the mouth and labret. True,

these early characteristics have been overlaid by the abounding

symbolism of later and more complex ideas—the skin of the sacrificial

victim, the serpent-heads, representing perhaps the spouting of that

victim’s blood from the severed trunk and the skirt of serpents with

which myth credited the goddess—but in the clumsy amorphousness of this

wondrously carven block we can readily perceive the outline of the

maize-sheaves from which its idea was drawn. Indeed the ears and leaves

of the maize-plant descend from underneath the skirt of serpents and

decorate the knot which secures it behind. [18]

“FETISH” ORIGIN OF GODS

More than one of the great gods exhibit the signs of fetishtic origin.

Uitzilopochtli, the great tribal patron deity of the Aztecâ of

Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was described in tradition as leading them from

the mythical northern country of Aztlan in the form of “a little bird.”

He is usually represented in the pictorial MSS., where his appearance

is infrequent, as wearing a mantle made from humming-birds’ feathers.

Later legend spoke of him as the vindicator of his mother, a goddess of

vegetation, and as slaying her detractors, his own half-brothers, while

in historical times the whole business of war was arranged through the

instrumentality of his oracular image and was carried out chiefly in

view of the necessity for human sacrifice which characterized his

especial cult. But if we examine the roots of the beliefs which cluster

around him, we shall find much to convince us that he was, after the

entrance of his people into the Valley of Anahuac, identified with the

maguey plant, which forms so familiar an object in the Mexican

landscape. Extended proof of this lowly origin will be found in the

section which deals with the god.

Quite as humble are the beginnings of the god Tezcatlipocâ, perhaps the

most universally dreaded among the Mexican deities. Regarding his

precise significance nothing very definite has been arrived at by

modern authorities. As will be shown later, the early significance of

Tezcatlipocâ arises out of his connection with obsidian, which had an

especial sanctity for the Mexicans.

ANIMAL GODS

In our gropings for the roots of the Mexican faith we must not fail to

notice those elements which stand apart from agricultural religion and

are eloquent of the concepts of a still earlier time. Agricultural

theology is as old as agriculture, and no older. The food-supply of the

savage prior to that period depends upon the successful conduct of the

chase. His gods are therefore often precisely of the species of animal

by hunting which he gains a livelihood, and which he frequently regards

as placed at his disposal by a great eponymous beast-god of the same

kind. [19] Again, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily

explained and for which no solution can be found at present, in view of

the rather dubious nature of what is known as “totemism,” primitive man

adores, or in some manner exalts, certain animals on the flesh of which

he does not live. But although gods evolved from animal shapes are

frequently to be met with in the Mexican pantheon, I can recall no

instance of the taboo of the flesh of any animal as an article of diet

in Anahuac, or Mexico proper, although this may be found in the cultus

of several of the tribes of the more outlying regions.

Uitzilopochtli has the characteristics of a humming-bird, and, indeed,

all of the thirteen gods which governed the hours of the day are

figured in the tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection with bird-disguises,

and one of the thirteen heavens of the Mexicans is set apart for

bird-gods, while certain other deities appear in animal forms. For

example, Tepeyollotl is figured as a jaguar, Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl

have serpentine characteristics, Itzpapalotl is a butterfly-dragon,

Tezcatlipocâ a spider, a jaguar, or a turkey, Mixcoatl takes deer

shape, and so on. But some of these forms are probably symbolic rather

than “totemic.” The cult of Nagualism, [20] a degraded post-Colombian

form of the old religion, was insistent upon the connection of its

votaries with an animal spirit or familiar from an early period of

their lives—that is, to each individual a personal “totem” was

assigned, precisely as is the case among many North American tribes at

the present time and as among the Lacandone of Yucatan.

GROWTH OF THE RAIN-CULT

Enough has been said in view of the restricted nature of the evidence,

to prove that Mexican religion passed through much the same primitive

conditions as other faiths. Further evidence on this point will be

adduced as the gods are severally described. We may now proceed to

examine such proof as we possess of the onward and upward progress of

the cult of rain and growth in Mexico. We may, perhaps, imagine the

institution of tribal or village rain or grain fetishes, which in

course of time would attain godhead by reason of popularity or supposed

auspiciousness. The ministers of these would probably bear a strong

resemblance to the medicine-men of North American Indian tribes.

Warfare undoubtedly played a great part in the fortunes of these local

cults. Thus, did the people of a certain tribal god triumph in feud or

battle, his worship would almost certainly be enlarged in a territorial

sense. But such a triumph would be a small incentive to further

conquest when compared with the absolute necessity for war engendered

by the holy law that captives must be obtained for purposes of

sacrifice to the tribal deities.

THE NECESSITY FOR HUMAN SACRIFICE

The origins of the institution of human sacrifice in Mexico are

obscure. Native mythology attributed its invention to a group of

earth-goddesses headed by Teteo innan or Tlazolteotl, who in the

Calendar year “eight-rabbit” came to the city of Tollan or Tula from

the Huaxtec country and, summoning the captives whom they had taken in

that land, said to them: “We want to couple the earth with you, we want

to hold a feast with you, for till now no battle-offerings have been

made with men.” [21]

This myth is, perhaps, ætiological, but it would seem to have some

historical basis. Deeply rooted in the Mexican mind was the idea that

unless the gods were abundantly refreshed with human blood they would

perish of hunger and old age and would be unable to undertake their

hypothetical labours in connection with the growth of the crops. Whence

came this idea? Undoubtedly from that process of barbaric reasoning

through which Mexican man had convinced himself that the amount of

rainfall would be in ratio to the amount of blood shed sacrificially.

Seler [22] has indicated his belief in such a process of reasoning by

stating that “the one was intended to draw down the other, the blood

which was offered was intended to bring down the rain upon the fields.”

This, then, is the precise nature of the compact between Mexican man

and his gods, Do ut des, “Give us rain, and we shall give you blood.”

Once this is understood the basic nature of Mexican religion becomes

clear, and all the later additions of theology and priestly invention

can be viewed as mere excrescences and ornaments upon the simple

architecture of the temple of the rain-cult.

THE LATER ELEMENTS OF MEXICAN RELIGION

The evolution of a higher cultus is frequently identified with a more

intimate acquaintance with the heavenly bodies, but it is not generally

appreciated or understood by students of Comparative Religion that at

least two different kinds of conception underlie the general idea. A

luminary, sun, moon, or star, may be deified and achieve godhead by

reason of striking natural characteristics, or, on the other hand, it

may be identified with some god already known. Thus Mexican myth, as

related to Sahagun by the natives, asserted that the gods met at

Teotihuacan and told how two of their number, Nanahuatl and

Tecciztecatl, sacrificed themselves by leaping into a great fire,

becoming the sun and moon respectively. The remaining gods, sacrificing

themselves also, “conferred life upon the stars,” that is they became

identified with the several stellar constellations, becoming known as

the Centzon Mimixcoa and Centzon Uitznaua, or “Four hundred

Northerners” and “Four hundred Southerners,” as they occupied the sky

on its northern or southern side. [23]

Although this myth and a version of it current at Texcuco and given by

Mendieta in his Historia Ecclesiastica [24] both represent Nanahuatl as

the sun-god, he was not so known in Mexican popular religion and

priestly practice, and was indeed a form of the god Xolotl, a deity of

obscure characteristics. Tecciztecatl certainly was regarded as the

moon-god, but the solar luminary was known as Tonatiuh or

Piltzintecutli. As has already been stated, there are sound reasons for

the belief that the solar cult was a relatively late institution in

Mexico, although in some parts of the country it may have flourished

for generations before it became popular in Tenochtitlan. Slightly

elaborating our former reasons for this statement, we may indicate: (1)

The name Tonatiuh appears in the myths of the origin of the sun as that

of the luminary, but not of a god. (2) The circumstance that Tonatiuh

was regarded by the Mexicans as a “heaven,” a Valhalla, to which the

warriors slain in sacrifice betook themselves after death, and

therefore represented a place of reward, a class of myth which is

nearly always of comparatively late origin, and is the fruit of mature

speculation. (3) The fact that Tonatiuh was closely identified with the

warrior caste and therefore with human sacrifice, which was a late

introduction and the paramount reason for the existence of that caste.

(4) That the original Calendar was a lunar one. But these and other

considerations will be dealt with more fully when we undertake the

elucidation of the sun-god’s characteristics.

The amalgamation of the solar cult and of the Quetzalcoatl cult

(representing the later and earlier “civilized” elements in Mexican

religion) with the rain-cult is not an isolated phenomenon in the

world’s religious history. The analogy of the fusion of the Osirian

cult of Egypt with that of Ra will occur to everyone in this

connection, and as the theology of the priests of the more aristocratic

faith became in the event subsidiary in real importance to that of the

far more popular Osirian worship, in the same manner the Quetzalcoatl

cult, and in some measure the solar, were of much less real

significance in Mexican life generally than the earlier popular belief.

The solar worship seems to have successfully and naturally identified

itself with the rain-cult, as also did the Quetzalcoatl religion. The

myth which described Quetzalcoatl as the founder or inventor of the

tonalamatl or Book of Fate [25] probably records an effort on the part

of his priesthood to identify their cult with the popular agricultural

religion or to systematize or reduce to symbolic form an idea which

until that time had probably existed in an uncertain and chaotic

condition in the popular mind. For even if the tonalamatl were

introduced from the Zapotec or Mixtec country or the Maya region, as is

generally supposed, it required skilful arrangement to make it subserve

the purposes of Aztec religion. The priesthood and cultus of

Quetzalcoatl were widespread throughout Central America and Mexico, and

its ministers appear to have adapted themselves with skill and patience

to the conditions of the various regions to which they penetrated, the

result of their labours never being quite the same in any two regions.

It is remarkable, too, that, probably by reason of the superior

erudition and ability of its priesthood, the caste of Quetzalcoatl held

chief sway in Mexican ecclesiastical government. [26] But a partial,

though by no means complete, hostility to human sacrifice and

ceremonial cannibalism, a grudging acquiescence in what it had, in all

likelihood, denounced in earlier times, gave it in later days a

somewhat aloof and separate character.

CULTURAL ELEMENTS OF MEXICAN RELIGION

We must now glance briefly at such evidences as we possess of the

distinct racial or cultural elements which assisted in the development

of Mexican religion. Three such elements appear to be indicated. It

would seem that from an early period a people of settled and

agricultural habits occupied the Mexican Plateau. These were probably

relatively aboriginal to the Toltecs and may have been of Otomi or

Tarascan blood, and to them I would refer the original foundation of a

rain-cult having Tlaloc as its principal deity. Tlaloc was

unquestionably one of the most venerable gods of Mexico, indeed he is

the only god who can be identified with certainty in the remains of

pre-Nahuan date at Teotihuacan. Tradition spoke of the finding of an

ancient idol representing him by the early Chichimec immigrants. [27]

At least five of the yearly festivals were celebrated in his honour,

and ancient sculptured representations of him have been found in

Tarascan territory, in Michoacan, Teotihuacan, Teotitlan, in the

Zapotec country and in Guatemala, thus affording irrefragable testimony

to his antiquity. Rather later than the culture which probably founded

the rain-cult (a religion necessary and indeed inevitable in Mexico)

was the Toltec civilization, which regarded Quetzalcoatl as its

chiefest divinity, and which probably was brought from the Huaxtec

country. But the Toltec are said to have been of Nahua blood, and may

have been composed of a Nahua populace and a Huaxtec or proto-Maya

aristocracy. The later hordes of Nahua (Chichimecs, Aztecâ, etc.) found

these elements already settled upon the land, but brought with them a

religion which, if it was destined to have a powerful effect upon the

faith of the agricultural folk with whom they came into contact, was

also to be quite as strongly influenced by it.

Reverting to the conditions prevailing in Mexico prior to the entry of

the Chichimec Nahua, we may regard the rain-cult of the Tlaloc religion

as in some measure resembling that of the Pueblo Indians of Northern

Mexico and Arizona at the present time. The serpentine character of its

principal deity, the appeal for rain which composes the basis of most

of the prayers to him, provide strong proofs of such a similarity, and,

as has been said, the antiquity of the rain religion is proved by the

discovery of early sculptured forms and the facts adduced above. The

Tlaloc religion had also been able in some degree to retain its own

sacrificial customs, the drowning of victims being practised in

addition to the Nahua method of slaughter on the stone of sacrifice.

The date of the introduction of the religion of Quetzalcoatl is

generally placed at the middle of the eighth century of our era, so

that we are perhaps justified in assuming that the faith of the greater

portion of Anahuac [28] before that time had as its basis the

rain-cult, as represented by Tlaloc.

The religious customs of those peoples who were relatively aboriginal

to the Nahua support the theory of the predominance of the rain-cult in

Mexico from a very early period, and Torquemada states that during

seasons of drought the Otomi sought to propitiate the rain-gods by

sacrificing a virgin on the top of a hill. [29] Espinosa says that the

Tarascans sacrificed snakes rather than human beings—possibly for the

same reason as the Esquimaux beat their dogs during an eclipse, in

order that the Great Dog which causes the undesirable phenomenon may

desist, the Tarascans probably killing the reptiles in question in

order that the Great Snake might relent and send rain. [30] The towns

about Chapala paid divine honours to the spirit of the adjacent lake.

Late though these survivals may have been at the era of the Conquest,

yet they seem to have enshrined the memory of an early rain-cult among

the peoples with whom they were found, and many others could be

adduced.

THE QUETZALCOATL CULT

The appearance of the Quetzalcoatl cult in Mexico, which would seem to

have entered the country at some time about the middle of the eighth

century, must have caused very considerable alterations in the simple

and probably as yet uninfluenced rain religion which it found in

occupancy. From whatever portion of the Isthmian tract it came, one

thing regarding it is positively certain—that it introduced into Mexico

the rudiments of the calendric computation evolved in Central America.

In its phase as imported by the apostles of the Quetzalcoatl religion,

it seems fairly certain that the tonalamatl was of the nature of a

lunar time-count, and the probabilities are that its protagonists

discovered on their arrival in Anahuac that a count similar in

character was in use among the priesthood of the Tlaloc worshippers,

who as an agricultural people could hardly have been without some such

system of computation. The Quetzalcoatl faith, however, was manifestly

of a considerably higher status than that which it encountered, as is

obvious not only by the numerous and extraordinary traditions regarding

the Toltec civilization, but the actual remains it has left. It is

clear that, whether it found a calendar or time-count already existing,

it placated aboriginal opinion by the amalgamation of the several

festivals of the rain-god with its own. The fact that the day-signs of

the Mexican calendar or tonalamatl are almost identical with those of

the Maya tonalamatl is good proof that the former was developed from

the latter; and if only a small proportion of Toltec deities find a

place in its monthly festivals, that would seem to be due to the

circumstance that later Nahua demands for the inclusion of their tribal

deities were acceded to. We may, perhaps, imagine the early tonalamatl

of the Quetzalcoatl missionaries to have been similar in form to that

of the Maya—that is, it must have been almost wholly concerned with the

festivals of deities of a purely agricultural kind.

But the religion of Quetzalcoatl, as observed in his Yucatec form of

Kukulkan and his Guatemalan variant of Gucumatz, bore a close

resemblance to that of Tlaloc. In Yucatan Quetzalcoatl was regarded by

priests and people as the great rain-making priest, the god of

moisture, whereas in Mexico he is merely the sweeper of the ways to the

Tlaloc deities of rain. This is surely eloquent of the fact that the

Tlaloc religion was not only of greater antiquity in Mexico, but that

its ministers were disinclined to permit the deity of the new religion

to adopt a status similar to that of their own god. With true priestly

diplomacy, then, it would seem that they temporized by affording

Quetzalcoatl a status as the great rain-making priest, a character

which he retained to the last. Myth certainly alludes to Tlaloc as the

supplanter of Quetzalcoatl in the affections of the goddess

Chalchihuitlicue and as robbing the peaceful culture-hero of the

maize-plant which he had discovered. This does not necessarily signify

the defeat of an older religion by a more novel faith, but may relate

to a successful defence by the more ancient cultus and its absorption

of the other.

The theory of the amalgamation of the Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl cults

appears to me to be in some measure assisted by the circumstance that

the devotees of both placed a high value upon minerals of a green

colour. The word chalchihuitl (“green stone”), of such common

occurrence in the works of the Spanish authors who wrote on Mexican

affairs, must be taken as applying with equal force to jadeite,

nephrite, turquoise, emerald, chlormelanite, green quartz, precious

serpentine, or, indeed, any mineral of a green shade. A tradition

existed that Quetzalcoatl brought the use and manipulation of jadeite

into Mexico, but green was a salient hue in the insignia of Tlaloc, and

the name of his consort Chalchihuitlicue (“greenstone skirt”) is

eloquent of his connection with the several kinds of stones which the

Mexicans grouped under the name chalchihuitl. Whatever significance

attached to the colour of these stones, apart from their nature as

precious stones, whether or not they were symbolic of water or verdure,

or metal, or of all of these agencies, which are regarded as so potent

by primitive peoples, it is apparent that both cults employed them

symbolically or pseudo-scientifically, and it therefore seems probable

that each of these religions was originally connected with the worship

of water, and therefore the influence associated with and contained in

water, and that this belief would render their amalgamation a process

of little difficulty.

If, however, such similarities eventually made for the union of the

cults, traditions were not lacking regarding their early differences or

hostilities. As has been said, myths survived into historical times,

which stated that although Quetzalcoatl had succeeded in discovering

maize, Tlaloc had stolen it from him and had also succeeded in

alienating from him the affection of Chalchihuitlicue, who had

originally been regarded as the wife of Quetzalcoatl. [31] But these

myths are undeniably of late origin. Quetzalcoatl’s status as a

celibate god or priest would scarcely allow his name to be connected

with matrimony, and it is plain that Chalchihuitlicue, the water

goddess, is in a sense merely a personification of the chalchihuitl

stone, which was, perhaps, originally one of the symbols of the

Quetzalcoatl cult and which later became personified in female form,

thus giving rise to the myth in question. Nor do these tales

necessarily prove the priority of the Quetzalcoatl cult, which was

indeed regarded as responsible for practically all Mexican civilization

and which would naturally be credited with the introduction of the use

of the sacred stones.

THE CULT OF OBSIDIAN

But if the later Nahua immigrants also came to regard these

chalchihuitl stones with reverence, at the period of their entrance to

the Mexican plateau they paid devotion to a mineral of a very different

kind. And this it is which helps us to regard their faith as differing

entirely from those other faiths which already flourished in the land.

The mineral with which their cult was so closely connected was

obsidian, a vitreous natural glass found in the upper volcanic strata

of Mexico and northern California, which flakes readily from the core

by pressure and gains by mere fracture a razor-like edge of

considerable penetrative power. The principal quarry of this volcanic

glass was the mountain known as the Cerro de las Navajas (“hill of the

knives”) near Timapan, and from this centre the itztli, by which name

obsidian was known to the Mexicans, was widely distributed by barter

over a very considerable area. There would seem to be proof that this

mineral, so suitable for the purposes of the nomadic hunter, was

anciently known far to the north of Mexico. The observations of Dr. G.

M. Dawson [32] in British Columbia satisfied him that trading

intercourse was engaged in by the coast tribes with those of the

interior along the Frazer River Valley and far to the south. From the

remotest times embraced in their native traditions, the Bilqula of Dean

Inlet have possessed a trade route by way of the Bella Coola River to

the Tinné country, along which trail broken implements and chips of

obsidian have been found. Many of the routes in British Columbia have

also yielded chips and flakes of obsidian, which, the Tinné Indians

stated, was obtained from a mountain near the headwaters of the Salmon

River (about long. 125° 40′, lat. 52° 40′), formerly resorted to for

the purpose of procuring the mineral. The Indian name of this mountain

is Bece, which, Dr. Dawson suggested, is the same with the “Mexican”

name for knife, itztli, an etymology which may be of Nahuatlac origin.

Mr. T. C. Weston, of the Geological Survey, also noted in 1883 the

finding of a flake of obsidian in connection with a layer of buffalo

bones occurring in alluvium, and evidently of considerable antiquity,

near Fort McLeod, Alberta. The nearest source of such a material is the

Yellowstone Park region. The coast tribes of British Columbia have been

traders for untold generations, exchanging oolactin oil for such

material as they could make implements from, and there seems to be no

doubt that the Mound-builders of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky were

also acquainted with obsidian, which they could only have obtained by

the process of barter. It was thus either to be found in the regions

from which the Nahua are thought to have come, or else obtainable

through the channels of trade.

If, then, it be granted that the Chichimec Nahua were acquainted with

obsidian and its properties before their entrance upon the Plateau of

Anahuac (a hypothesis which is strengthened by the material differences

of workmanship between their tools and weapons made of this material

and those of the aboriginal peoples of Mexico), sufficient time had

elapsed for their development of a cult, which, at the era of the

Conquest, exhibited traces of a very considerable antiquity. It was,

naturally, as a hunting people that they employed weapons of obsidian.

The herds of deer on the flesh of which they chiefly lived roamed the

steppes, and proof abounds that the customs of the chase strongly

influenced the religious ideas of the early Nahua. Certain of their

gods, indeed, seem to have been developed from cervine forms, for among

barbarous races the animal worshipped is that which provides the tribe

with its staple food, or, more correctly, a great eponymous figure of

that animal is adored—for example, the Great Deer, who sends the

smaller deer to keep the savage in life. In like manner barbarous

fisherfolk are wont to worship the Great Fish, which sends them its

progeny or its subjects to serve as food. These deer gods or hunting

gods in some way connected with the deer—Itzpapalotl, Itzcuêyê,

Mixcoatl, Camaxtli—had also stellar or solar attributes. The deer was

slain by the obsidian weapon, which, therefore, came to be regarded as

the magical weapon, that by which food was procured. In the course of

time it assumed a sacred significance, the hunting gods themselves came

to wield it, and it was thought of as coming from the stars or the

heavens where the gods dwelt, in precisely the same manner as flint

arrowheads were regarded by the peasantry of Europe as “elf-arrows” or

“thunder-stones”—that is, as something supernatural, falling from

above.

But the obsidian itself became deified as Tezcatlipocâ. I have retained

the full proof of this assertion for the section which treats of that

god, and must here content myself with a summary of it. The whole cult

of obsidian centred in the personality of Tezcatlipocâ. His idol was

made of that stone, and in Codex Borbonicus his sandals are painted

with the zigzag line of the obsidian snake. In his variant of Itztli

(obsidian) he was the god of the sacrificial knife of obsidian, and in

certain codices he is represented as having such a knife in place of a

foot. From this stone, too, divinatory mirrors were made, one of which

was held by the idols of Tezcatlipocâ and served as the mirror or

scrying-stone in which he witnessed the doings of mankind. Obsidian,

the great life-giver, food-getter, blood-provider, became identified in

the form of this god with the cause or breath of life, which, in turn,

was identified with the wind, and therefore it came to be classed among

those magical stones which in some mysterious manner are considered

capable of raising a tempest. In this manner Tezcatlipocâ came to be

regarded as a god of wind, and has been identified with the Hurakan of

the Quiches of Guatemala, from whose name the expression “hurricane”

has been borrowed and who was probably introduced into Central America

by the Nahua.

When the nomadic Chichimec adopted an agricultural condition, obsidian

had doubtless been regarded as sacred for many generations. It was by

virtue of this magical stone that the nourishment of the gods was

maintained by the sacrifice of deer; but when the Chichimec came to

embrace a more settled existence within an agricultural community where

deer must certainly have been more scarce, the nourishment of the gods

had necessarily to be maintained by other means. The manner in which

this was effected is quite clear. Slaves and war-captives were

sacrificed instead of beasts of the chase, and at the festival of

Mixcoatl, the greatest of the Chichimec gods, women were sacrificed in

the place of deer, and after being slain were carried down the steps of

the teocalli, their wrists and ankles tied together precisely in the

manner in which a deer is trussed by the hunter. [33] The transition

from deer-sacrifice to a human holocaust and from the hunting to the

agricultural condition is well illustrated by an ancient hymn relating

to the goddess Itzpapalotl (“Obsidian Butterfly”), who was associated

with Mixcoatl.

“O, she has become a goddess of the melon cactus,

Our Mother Itzpapalotl, the obsidian butterfly.

Her food is on the Nine Plains,

She was nurtured on the hearts of deer,

Our Mother, the earth-goddess.”

The inference in these lines seems to be that whereas Itzpapalotl was

formerly a goddess of the Chichimec nomads of the steppes, who

sacrificed deer to her, she has now become the deity of the

melon-cactus patch and an agricultural community. Her first human

victim is also mentioned by Camargo, [34] who states that the

Chichimec, coming to the province of Tepeueuec, sacrificed a victim to

her by shooting him with arrows. Itzpapalotl has more than one cervine

attribute. [35]

Mexican tradition makes it very plain that obsidian, because of its

blood-procuring properties, came to be regarded as the source of all

life, as the very principle of existence. Tonacaciuatl, the creative

goddess, as we shall see, gave birth to an obsidian knife from which

sprang sixteen hundred demigods who peopled the earth, [36] and the

infant which the goddess Ciuacoatl leaves in the cradle in the

market-place undergoes metamorphosis into an obsidian knife. [37] As

the Codices show, grain is often pictured in the form of the obsidian

knife of sacrifice. Just as in many myths, both in the Old World and

the New, flint was regarded as the great fertilizer because of its

supposed connection with the lightning, so was obsidian. Thus all the

elements which go to make for growth and life were regarded as having a

connection with this mineral, even the sun itself, as we shall see,

being identified with the Mirror of Tezcatlipocâ. The idea that the sun

could not live without human blood was a purely Nahua conception,

arising out of an earlier belief that it must be nourished upon the

blood of beasts. Of the transitional process abundant proof exists. The

hunter’s obsidian weapon which supplied the necessary pabulum became in

turn the weapon of the warrior who procured victims for the holocaust,

and the sacred knife of the priest who sacrificed them to the deity.

Obsidian was thus chiefly the war weapon and the sacrificial weapon,

but the traditions relating to it refer to practically all the offices

of human art, industry, and activity generally.

Lest this hypothesis seem overstrained, analogies may be indicated.

That which is initially sacred in a primitive cult frequently comes to

have interrelations with the whole environment of its deities. Thus the

worship of the oak by the Druids appears to have given an oak-like

virtue to the oracular birds which dwelt in its branches, to the soil

from which it grew, to the sky above it, to the priests who ministered

to it and to the sacred implements they employed. The same may be said

of the oak-cult of Zeus and the vine-cult of Dionysos. The numerous

traditions which cluster round the ceremonial use of jade in China are

eloquent of such a tendency. Thus trees, plants, animals, and natural

objects are all in a manner identified and connected with the beautiful

jade stone in its character as an imparter of vitality. Thus in the

great worship of the gods whose cult was connected with obsidian,

well-nigh everything with which it had interrelations came to partake

of the nature of obsidian—grain, the earth, the atmosphere, the sun,

the stars, the priesthood, blood, and rain.

The process by which this Nahua cult became amalgamated with those of

Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl seems fairly clear. Upon their settlement on

the Plateau of Anahuac it is plain from the terms of certain myths that

the Nahua did not regard the cult of Quetzalcoatl in any friendly

manner. Tezcatlipocâ is spoken of as driving him from the country, and

it is probable that to begin with a certain amount of persecution may

have been inflicted upon his adherents. But the Nahua would undoubtedly

come to recognize the value of the calendar system connected with his

cult, and it is clear that they did so from the fact that we find

included in it certain of their principal gods. The final process of

amalgamation probably took place during the eleventh and twelfth

centuries, for, as seen at the Conquest period, the union of the three

great cults of Mexico must have occupied several centuries. Such a

duration of time was necessary for the development of a homogeneous and

involved symbolism, which was obviously based on a tacit recognition of

the unity of the Mexican faith. Initial disparities seem to be

indicated principally by ancient traditions, of which perhaps the most

notable was that which spoke of the different heavens of the three

original cults, the Tlalocan of the worshippers of Tlaloc, the

Tlapallan or over-sea paradise of the Quetzalcoatl cult, and the

Sun-house or Valhalla of the Nahua. A striking proof of the adjustment

of the chronology of the three cults may perhaps be found in the myths

which speak of the existence of several “suns” or ages prior to the

historical era, the “rulers” or patrons of which were, according to the

most trustworthy sources, Tezcatlipocâ, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, and

Chalchihuitlicue, goddess of the Tlaloc cult. [38]

The attribution of higher and abstract qualities to the gods was

probably of comparatively late origin. Especially is this to be

observed in the case of Tezcatlipocâ, to whom, at the period of the

Conquest, we find attributed such a bewildering array of qualities,

both concrete and abstract, lofty and the reverse, as would seem to

indicate that, had European influences failed to penetrate to Anahuac,

his worship might have reached the monotheistic stage, and in time have

overshadowed that of the other gods of the Mexican pantheon.

Undoubtedly, too, the priesthood, and probably the nobility, fostered a

more esoteric and loftier type of religion than was understood of the

people, and good proof (which is by no means confined to the rather

doubtful circumstance that Nezahualcoyotl of Texcuco built a temple to

the “Unknown God”) is forthcoming that theological questions of greater

or less complexity had begun to exercise the minds of the hierarchy.

UNITY OF RELIGIOUS CONCEPTION THROUGHOUT MEXICO

At the epoch of the Conquest it is abundantly clear that the Aztecâ had

succeeded in establishing their tribal cult, enriched with the beliefs

of the peoples they had conquered, over a wide area. They had adopted

into their pantheon such deities of the surrounding tribes as appealed

to their imagination, or were too powerful to be ignored, and actually

“imprisoned” many others of lesser puissance, whose idols were kept in

confinement in a building within the precincts of the great temple at

Mexico-Tenochtitlan. [39]

Within the historical period but little radical difference existed

between the several Mexican cults, which all appear to have been

affected by a common influence. We observe, therefore, the phenomenon

of certain early religious forms originating under common influences,

separated for centuries and profoundly altered by immigrant forces, at

length brought together again by the amalgamating powers of conquest

under the influence of one central and paramount cult, only, when once

more united, to find a common destruction at the hands of the ministers

of an alien and invading faith.

At the period of the Conquest, then, we find the Mexican religion

relatively homogeneous in character, with a widespread ascendancy, its

provincial activities exhibiting differences of little more than local

kind. Even in its most far-flung manifestations, indeed, it never

showed such variations as permit us to say that the most dissimilar or

distant variety of the cult entirely differed from the metropolitan

exemplar. [40] This being so, we are as fully justified in speaking of

a Mexican religion as we are in alluding to an Italic or a Hellenic

religion, and perhaps more so than in extending the analogy to Egypt,

where anything like homogeneity in either theology or popular worship

appears never to have been attained. We find, then, that the religion

of ancient Mexico, as known at the Conquest period, was the outcome of

later religious and ethical impulses brought to bear upon a simple

rain-cult, which, judging from the atmospheric conditions essential to

it, must have been indigenous to the country. Although the cults of its

several deities still retained some measure of distinctiveness, all had

long before been amalgamated in what was really a national faith. There

are signs, too, that a fully developed pantheon had been evolved, which

mirrored an elaborate social system in caste, rank, and guild, but the

mythical material from which this might have been reconstructed is only

partly available. We find, too, that practically every god in the

Mexican hierarchy, whatever his original status, was in some manner

connected with the rain-cult. Indeed, the rain-cult is the central and

coalescing factor in Mexican religion, its nucleus and foundation. As

might be expected, most of the deities of agricultural growth appear to

be of either Toltec or alien origin. Thus, Chicomecoatl was Toltec,

while Tlazolteotl, Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Cinteotl, and Xipe were all

alien deities of the older settled peoples, but what their relationship

to the three great cults of Mexico may have been is not apparent. Most

of these deities appear in the tonalamatl, so that their worship must

have been adopted at a comparatively early date.

Students of religious phenomena not infrequently show distaste for the

deeper consideration of the Mexican faith, not only because of the

difficulties which beset the fuller study of this interesting phase of

human belief in the eternal verities, but also, perhaps, because of the

“diabolic” reputation which it has achieved, and the grisly horrors to

which it is thought those who examine it must perforce accustom

themselves. It is certainly not the most obviously prepossessing of the

world’s religions. Yet if a due allowance be made for the earnestness

of its priests and people in the strict observance of a system the

hereditary burden of which no one man or generation could hope to

remove, and the religion of the Aztecâ be viewed in a liberal and

tolerant spirit, those who are sufficiently painstaking in their

scrutiny of it will in time find themselves richly rewarded. Not only

does it abound in valuable evidences for the enrichment of the study of

religious science and tradition, but by degrees its astonishing beauty

of colour and wealth of symbolic variety will appeal to the student

with all the enchantment of discovery. The echoes of the sacred drum of

serpent-skin reverberating from the lofty pyramid of Uitzilopochtli,

and passing above the mysterious city of Tenochtitlan with all the

majesty of Olympic thunder, will seem not less eloquent of the soul of

a vanished faith than do the memories of the choral chants of Hellas.

And if the recollection of the picturesque but terrible rites of this

gifted, imaginative, and not undistinguished people harrows the

feelings, does it not arouse in us that fatal consciousness of man’s

helplessness before the gods, which primitive religion invariably

professes and which reason almost seems to uphold?