STELLAR AND PLANETARY DEITIES
TONATIUH = “THE SUN”
Area of Worship: Plateau of Anahuac.
Minor Names:
Piltzintecutli = “Young Prince.”
Totec = “Our Chief.”
Xipilli = “The Turquoise Prince.”
Calendar Place:
Third of the nine lords of the night.
Ruler of the nineteenth day-count, quiauitl.
Ruler of the day-sign ce xochitl.
Compass Direction: Upper region; the heavens; lord of the east.
Symbol: The sun-disk, which he usually wears as a back-ornament.
Festivals: The fourth day, nauollin, in the sign ce ocelotl
(movable feast).
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 9: His nose-plug has the colours of the
chalchihuitl. The ornament attached to the nape and back is a large
rosette or disk painted in the chalchihuitl colours, as is the wrap
which falls over the back. The ends of the loin-cloth also show the
elements of this hieroglyph, and such a loin-cloth painting was usually
indicative of the rank of the wearer in ancient Mexico. On his breast
is a large gold disk. From his hollow ear-plug depends a jewelled band,
and his collar consists of a solar disk (?). Sheet 70: in this picture
he is seated on a platform covered with a jaguar-skin. His face-paint
and body-paint are yellow, with a rectangular stripe from the end of
the nose-plug and above the eye across the forehead. His hair or wig is
yellow, and is held by a jewelled band ornamented with a bird’s head.
His headdress is further equipped with eagle’s feathers, and three
tasselled cords edged with cotton hang from it. On his breast lies the
solar disk. The head of a grey parrot protrudes from his back, and on
the face is a small red disk. Sheet 14: Here he is depicted as a red
Tezcatlipocâ with the face-paint of the Sun-god, but is without the
small red disk on the face, having instead the small, four-cornered
white-and-red patch characteristic of the Maize-god, of Xochipilli and
Tonacatecutli.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 20: Here he is painted with flame-coloured
hair, bound by a fillet, on the front of which is the usual bird’s-head
ornament. His panache consists chiefly of two eagle’s feathers, from
which hang two long bands, one side of which is hairy as if formed of
skin, and this may be taken as a characteristic sign of him in the MSS.
of the Codex Borgia group. His nose-plug has a plate depending from it,
which falls over the mouth, as in some representations of Tezcatlipocâ,
and on his breast he wears an ornament which recalls that worn by the
Fire-god in this codex. In this MS., as in Codex Borgia, he is
represented as standing before a temple, with a burnt-offering of wood
and rubber in his hand, and here the temple is painted in the
chalchihuitl colour-elements, and its roof covered by jewelled disks.
Sheet 94: In this picture he is shown as wearing a long, flame-like
beard, which strongly resembles that worn by Quetzalcoatl and
Tonacatecutli in some MSS., save that it is the colour of fire.
Aubin-Goupil Tonalamatl.—Sheet 10: In this manuscript the upper portion
of the face is light red, and the lower a darker red. The outer corner
of the eye is encircled by three red lines, which are rounded. He wears
a jewelled fillet, feathered crown, collar, breast-ornament,
butterfly’s wing neck-ornament, the net-pouch of the hunting tribes,
and the sword-fish pattern sword.
Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—The face is yellow with no lines. He wears
the fillet with turquoise jewels, and a wheel-shaped ornament at the
nape of the neck, probably symbolic of the solar disk. Elsewhere in
this MS. he is red, wears the solar disk on his back, and holds the
cotinga bird in one hand and a shield and a bundle of spears in the
other.
Codex Borbonicus.—The face is half yellow, half red, and is surmounted
by a flame-coloured wig bound by the jewelled fillet with its usual
ornament. Elsewhere in this codex he represents the sun by night, with
the body and upper part of the face dark, no nasal rod, but a crescent
like that of the Earth-goddess and the octli-gods. The sea-snail’s
shell is above him, and the symbol of the eye in a dark patch.
General.—As second member of the third row in Codex Borgia, Vaticanus
B, and Fejérváry-Mayer, he is recognized by his red body and
face-painting, and flame-coloured hair bound up by a jewelled chain or
strap, with the conventional bird figure on the frontal side.
WALL-PAINTINGS
Several lively paintings decorate the friezes executed on the walls of
the palaces at Mitla, where the insignia of the god are given in the
manner familiar throughout Mexico. The fillet with the bird’s-head
frontal ornament, the peculiar disposition of the panache, and the
necklace typical of the deity are all reproduced, and here serve to
prove the widespread character of his worship.
MYTHS
The myths dealing with the origin of the sun and the several epochs in
which he reappeared under different forms have already been given in
the chapter on Cosmogony, and in the précis of the opening chapters of
the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas. The myths relating to
his paradise have also been dealt with in that chapter.
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says:
“It was Tonatiuh they affirm who conducted to heaven the souls of those
alone who died in war; and on this account they paint him with these
arms in his hands. He sits as a conqueror, exactly opposite to the
other who is near him, who is god of hell. They allege that the cause
of winter being so disagreeable is the absence of the sun, and that
summer is delightful on account of its presence; and that the return of
the sun from our zenith is nothing more than the approach of their god
to confer his favours on them.”
FESTIVALS
Nauollin.—One of the feasts of the Sun-god was held at the ceremony
known as nauollin (the “four motions,” alluding to the quivering
appearance of the sun’s rays) in the Quauhquauhtinchan (House of the
Eagles), an armoury set apart for the military order of that name. The
warriors gathered in this hall for the purpose of dispatching a
messenger to their lord the sun. High up on the wall of the principal
court was a great symbolic representation of the orb, painted upon a
brightly coloured cotton hanging. Before this copal and other fragrant
gums and spices were burned four times a day. The victim, a
war-captive, was placed at the foot of a long staircase leading up to
the stone on which he was to be sacrificed. He was clothed in red
striped with white and wore white plumes in his hair—colours symbolical
of the sun—while he bore a staff decorated with feathers and a shield
covered with tufts of cotton. He also carried a bundle of eagle’s
feathers and some paint on his shoulders, to enable the sun, to whom he
was the emissary, to paint his face. He was then addressed by the
officiating priest in the following terms: “Sir, we pray you go to our
god the sun, and greet him on our behalf; tell him that his sons and
warriors and chiefs and those who remain here beg of him to remember
them and to favour them from that place where he is, and to receive
this small offering which we send him. Give him the staff to help him
on his journey, and this shield for his defence, and all the rest that
you have in this bundle.” The victim, having undertaken to carry the
message to the Sun-god, was then dispatched upon his long journey.
Ome acatl or Toxiuhilpilia.—This great solar festival was celebrated
once in fifty-two years only, and signified the “binding of the years,”
the end of the solar cycle, when, it was believed, the “old” sun died
and a new luminary would take its place, or the world would be plunged
into darkness. Says Clavigero:
“The festival, which was celebrated every fifty-two years, was by far
the most splendid and most solemn, not only among the Mexicans, but
likewise among all the nations of that empire, or who were neighbouring
to it. On the last night of their century, they extinguished the fire
of all the temples and houses, and broke their vessels, earthen pots,
and other kitchen utensils, preparing themselves in this manner for the
end of the world which at the termination of each century [sic] they
expected with terror. The priests, clothed in various dresses and
ensigns of their gods and accompanied by a vast crowd of people, issued
from the temples out of the city, directing their way towards the
mountain Huixachtla, near to the city of Itztapalapan, upwards of six
miles distant from the capital. They regulated their journey in some
measure by observation of the stars, in order that they might arrive at
the mountain a little before midnight, on the top of which the new fire
was to be kindled. In the meantime the people remained in the utmost
suspense and solicitude, hoping on the one hand to find from the new
fire a new century granted to mankind, and fearing on the other hand
the total destruction of mankind if the fire by divine interference
should not be permitted to kindle. Husbands covered the faces of their
pregnant wives with the leaves of the aloe, and shut them up in
granaries; because they were afraid that they would be converted into
wild beasts and would devour them. They also covered the faces of
children in that way, and did not allow them to sleep, to prevent their
being transformed into mice. All those who did not go out with the
priests mounted upon terraces, to observe from thence the event of the
ceremony. The office of kindling the fire on this occasion belonged
exclusively to a priest of Copolco, one of the districts of the city.
The instruments for this purpose were, as we have already mentioned,
two pieces of wood, and the place on which the fire was produced from
them was the breast of some brave prisoner whom they sacrificed. As
soon as the fire was kindled they all at once exclaimed with joy; and a
great fire was made on the mountain that it might be seen from afar, in
which they afterwards burned the victim whom they had sacrificed.
Immediately they took up portions of the sacred fire and strove with
each other who should carry it most speedily to their houses. The
priests carried it to the greater temple of Mexico, from whence all the
inhabitants of that capital were supplied with it. During the thirteen
days which followed the renewal of the fire, which were the intercalary
days, interposed between the past and ensuing century to adjust the
year with the course of the sun, they employed themselves in repairing
and whitening the public and private buildings, and in furnishing
themselves with new dresses and domestic utensils, in order that
everything might be new, or at least appear to be so, upon the
commencement of the new century. On the first day of that year and of
that century, which, as we have already mentioned, corresponded to the
26th of February, for no person was it lawful to taste water before
midday. At that hour the sacrifices began, the number of which was
suited to the grandeur of the festival. Every place resounded with the
voice of gladness and mutual congratulations on account of the new
century which heaven had granted to them. The illuminations made during
the first nights were extremely magnificent; their ornaments of dress,
entertainments, dances, and public games were superiorly solemn.” [315]
NATURE AND STATUS
In my view the sun-god Piltzintecutli is merely a personification of
Tonatiuh, the sun. As has already been said, solar worship in Mexico
seems to have been developed at a comparatively late period. In the
myths regarding the origin of the sun given by Olmos and Sahagun, it is
clear that he is regarded more as a luminary than as a god. The name
Tonatiuh, indeed, means nothing more than “sun,” and although one of
the sacrificed gods was believed to have given him life, and he
afterwards acts as a living being, he does not seem to possess the same
qualities of personality as his later form, Piltzintecutli. The
expression “Tonatiuh” seems to have been regarded as a divine
place-name, a paradise to which those warriors fared who died in
battle.
Tonatiuh was known as the Teotl, that is as the god par excellence, but
this does not by any means imply that the Mexicans regarded him as the
highest form of deity known to them. I think it rather means that the
priests, having arrived at the conclusion that the tonalamatl and the
calendar hinged, so to speak, upon the solar periods, came very
naturally to regard the sun as the centre or hub of the intricate
system which they had built up through generations. The very name
Teotl, too, shows that, in later times at least, the sun was regarded
as a deity, perhaps because he occupied the vault of the sky “where the
gods live.”
But above and beyond this we have to regard Mexican sun-worship from an
entirely different point of view. There is abundant evidence that the
hunting tribes of the northern steppes, the Chichimec immigrants,
possessed a primitive sun-worship of their own. It may be, indeed, that
it was from this that the worship of Tonatiuh sprang, and not from the
consideration of calendric science; but the criteria we possess
regarding this part of the question is at present much too scanty to
permit of more precise statement. But if we know that sun-worship
obtained among the nomadic tribes of northern Mexico, we are somewhat
ignorant of the precise form it took. One thing, however, seems
certain, and that is that it was founded on the belief that the sun
existed on the blood of animals, preferably deer, and that when these
were scarce, on the blood of human beings. If blood-offerings to the
sun were to cease, it was thought that the luminary would grow weak,
fail, and become extinguished, or else would visit his wrath upon
humanity in some such manner as we read of in those myths which recount
the recurrent catastrophes of fire, wind, deluge, and earthquakes which
the wrathful luminary brought upon mankind. I would, therefore, date
the introduction of the solar worship proper into Mexico, and
consequently that of human sacrifice, from the period of entry of those
northern Chichimec peoples, who, entering the Valley of Mexico at an
epoch shortly after the disintegration of the Toltec civilization,
adopted an agricultural existence, and finding the supply of wild
animals insufficient to meet the requirements of sacrifice, instituted
the occasional immolation of human beings. This custom seems, indeed,
to have already obtained in the case of the ritual of some of the
native gods, for example, Tlaloc and the Earth-mother, and it may be,
indeed, that the northern nomads drew the inspiration which prompted
them to this evil practice from their more civilized neighbours. But it
is even more probable that, as the various Mexican peoples were for the
most part of cognate origin and contiguous civilization, the practice
of human sacrifice had been common to all of them in a more or less
modified form for some generations, and only received an impetus after
the Chichimec immigration. Against this view may be quoted the myth
which refers the introduction of human sacrifice to a group of Huaxtec
earth-goddesses, Tlazolteotl and her sisters. But it seems to me that
this Maya people were by no means so prone to the custom, and that in
this instance Tlazolteotl has been confounded with some of her Mexican
forms. The process by which blood was thought of as being transformed
into rain has already been fully described, and it but remains here to
indicate that Tonatiuh is, in places, closely identified with the sign
atl, water, and is indeed one of the four rulers of the week beginning
with the day “one rain,” probably because of the early belief that on
one occasion the sun “drank up” all the water on earth and later
disgorged it in floods.
For the reason that he was regarded as existing on blood, the sun was
thought of as the great patron of warriors, and has an intimate
connection with both Uitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipocâ. But if we seek
for evidence which would seem to exalt him above the greater gods in
Mexico, and place him in a central and pre-eminent position in the
pantheon, we will be disappointed. [316] At the same time we must
recollect that the two deities just mentioned, and even Quetzalcoatl in
a measure, possessed a solar connection, and in the offering of the
hearts of all victims to his glowing face we may probably see a
survival or a reminiscence from a period when he was perhaps the
central figure in the pantheon of the Chichimec nomads.
There is also plenty of evidence that the sun must be classed with
Xiuhtecutli and the other gods of fire, as is shown by the great fire
festival which took place every fifty-two years. But the lack of data
regarding the sun as a personalized deity rather than a divine luminary
places us at a disadvantage in attempting to assess his precise nature
and status in the Mexican pantheon, and considerable research is
required before this can be essayed with any degree of confidence.
METZTLI = “THE MOON,” OR TECCIZTECATL = “HE FROM THE SEA-SNAIL”
Symbol: Bone-surrounded disk set in the night-sky, containing a
rabbit.
Calendar Place:
Ruler of the sixth day-count, miquiztli.
Ruler of the sixth tonalamatl division, ce miquiztli.
Ruler of the fifth night-hour.
Compass Direction: South.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—In this codex he is shown as a female, old, with the
gobber tooth or lip contraction indicative of extreme age. He is
painted yellow, the colour of women. The white of the clothing
expresses the relatively dull hue of the luminary when compared with
the sun.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Here he is old and white-haired, and is pictured as
a priest with the marine snail’s shell on his brow. The body-colour is
blue, as is the face, on sheet 30, but on sheet 88, half-blue,
half-red, as in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer picture of Mixcoatl. On sheet
30 he is figured with a long beard and wears Xochipilli’s ornaments.
Aubin Tonalamatl.—In this place he is represented by Tezcatlipocâ.
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 24: Here he is pictured as an old god with
a long beard. The body-colour is blue, and the face half-blue,
half-red, like that of Xolotl in the same MS. He wears the sea-snail
shell on his fillet.
MYTHS
The principal myths relating to the origin of the Moon-god have already
been given in the chapter on Cosmogony.
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A states that:
“They believed that the moon presided over human generation, and
accordingly they always put it by the side of the sun. They placed on
its head a sea-snail, to denote that in the same way as this marine
animal creeps from its integument or shell, so man comes from his
mother’s womb.”
The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says:
“Meztli was otherwise named Tectziztecatl; because in the same way that
a snail creeps from its shell, so man proceeds from his mother’s womb.
They placed the moon opposite to the sun, because its course
continually crosses his; and they believed it to be the cause of human
generation.”
NATURE AND STATUS
Tecciztecatl is “the Man in the Moon,” the spirit who dwells in or
animates the luminary of night. He is frequently depicted as an old man
or priest, with staff in hand, and is the wizard, or naualli, who lurks
within the moon-cave, or house, for so the moon seems to have appeared
to the Mexicans. It seems also to have been regarded or symbolized as a
snail-shell, and it is probable that the curved shape of it in its
earliest phase, no less than its gradual growth, brought about this
conception. This in turn created the train of thought which resulted in
its being regarded as the symbol of conception and birth—its growth and
gradual rotundity, as well as its symbolic connection with the snail
assisting the idea. As the wizard of night concealed within his cavern,
Tecciztecatl was identified with Tezcatlipocâ, the sorcerer par
excellence, the magician who held sway over the dreaded hours of
darkness. The moon had also a connection with Chalchihuitlicue and the
octli-gods, which is dealt with in the sections relating to those
deities.
MIXCOATL, IZTAC MIXCOATL, OR CAMAXTLI AS MIXCOATL = “CLOUD SERPENT”
Area of Worship: Chichimec country; Mexico-Tenochtitlan;
Tlaxcallan.
Minor Names:
Iztac Mixcoatl.
Camaxtli.
Relationship: One of the Tzitzimimê; father of Uitzilopochtli;
husband of Itzcuêyê.
Festival: Quecholli, the fourteenth month.
Compass Direction: North.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 25: In this manuscript Mixcoatl’s almost nude
body is striped with white, as in the case of some of the stellar
deities, and he has the half-mask stellar face-painting about the eye.
His hair curls up above the brow, is covered with downy white feathers,
and he wears a forked heron-feather tuft on the head. On sheet 37 his
effigy is accompanied by the symbolical weapons of war.
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 50; right-hand corner, lower portion: The
representation in this place is almost identical with that in Codex
Vaticanus B, sheet 25. On sheet 15 the god has the implements of war
and a small hand-flag, and wears a blue metal breast-plate set in gold,
from which depends a chalchihuitl jewel.
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 41: Mixcoatl is here depicted with
body-colour half-blue, half-red, the black domino-stellar painting
about the eye, his hair puffed up above the brow and surmounted by the
warrior’s adornment. The body-painting in this place is merely a
variant of the striped colour, perhaps indicating the twilight. As god
of the hunting tribes, he is naked like the hunter, and has an ear-plug
made from a deer’s foot. He is armed with a throwing-stick (atlatl).
WALL-PAINTINGS
On the west side of the court of Palace I at Mitla are certain
fragments, some of which undoubtedly represent Mixcoatl in his
different phases. In the first of these he is represented as wearing a
white wig surmounted by tufts of down in which arrows are stuck. On his
face he has the familiar “domino-painting,” he is bearded, and his
nose-plug is of a peculiar character, somewhat unfamiliar and
expressing a serpentine motif. He wears a collar with sharp stellar
edges. The fifth figure to the right from this once more represents him
in the same guise, only that in his left hand he holds the atlatl, or
spear-thrower. His peculiarly stellar character has not been lost upon
the artist who executed these paintings, as the stellar eye-motif
decorates the top of the frieze on which they appear. Not far away is
seen the deer usually associated with him.
STATUARY AND PAINTINGS
An interesting stone figure of Mixcoatl was discovered in the ruins of
the Castillo de Teayo, to the west of the pyramid. It is made of
sandstone, and the frontal aspect shows the god wearing a high panache
of feathers, a headdress flanked by tufts or puffings of some textile
material from which feathers depend, and an elaborate necklace. The
skirt, the upper part of which is V-shaped, hangs down to the ankles,
and is tied up behind in a double knot. In his left hand he carries the
bag which holds obsidian arrow-heads, his invariable symbol, and in the
right the S-formed lightning symbol, with which he is often
represented, as in the Codex Magliabecchiano. Another relief from the
same site shows him carrying the same symbols. His hair is decorated
with feather-balls, as in the Codex Magliabecchiano and Duran’s
illustration. In a painting from Teopancaxo he wears a peculiar
headdress from which falls behind a large panache of feathers, and
which seems to be decorated with down; a horizontal band crosses the
face beneath the eye and covers the whole of the nose. In one hand he
carries the lightning symbol, from which spring serpentine streaks of
lightning, and in the other a small shield like a sunflower and three
arrows with blunt ends.
AS IZTAC MIXCOATL = “WHITE CLOUD SERPENT”
Minor Names: Ce eecatl = “One Wind.”
Relationship:
Husband of Ilancuêyê and progenitor of the Xelhua national
ancestors, Tenoch, Ulmecatl, Xicalancatl, Mixtecatl, Otomitl.
Husband of a second wife, Chimamatl, by whom he had a son,
Quetzalcoatl.
Compass Direction: Upper region.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 32: He has the head of a deer. He carries
for a staff the neck of a long-billed, white bird, a heron. Before him
stands a dish containing an eye and a feather ornament, reproducing in
form and colour the warrior’s forked heron-feather adornment. Sheet 6:
He is painted a yellow colour, thin and with wrinkled skin, his face
looking out of the open throat of a bird, which has a feather crest
curling up and a variegated rosette on its beak. In one hand he holds a
bone dagger, in the other a staff tied round with a white-fringed
cloth. As hieroglyph is shown beside him the day ce eecatl, “one wind.”
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 60: Here he is represented as having heron-feather
hair and beard, and a ring-shaped appendage below the upper lip
indicative of age. He is dressed as a priest, with tobacco-calabash on
back and red patch on temple. He holds in one hand a staff bent like a
heron’s neck, and in the other a bunch of malinalli grass. Sheet 24:
The representation here is almost identical, except that the staff has
a heron’s head and that a bone piercer is worn behind the ear. In both
pictures he wears a curious back device, recalling that on the
rattle-staff of Quetzalcoatl. In some places he wears a helmet-mask
like the head of a deer.
AS CAMAXTLI
Area of Worship: Tlaxcallan and Huexotzinco.
Festival: Ce tecpatl (movable feast).
Relationship: Brother of Uitzilopochtli, and probably a local
variant of him.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Face-paint.—He wears the domino face-paint, like Uitzilopochtli and
Mixcoatl, and a nose-plug.
The body is striped with red and white, in which circumstance he agrees
with Mixcoatl and Tlauizcalpantecutli, the morning star. He wears a
headdress seemingly of feathers, and in Duran his hair is long and he
wears a knitted loin-cloth. A dead rabbit, or its skin, is slung across
his breast. In the Humboldt MS. (Roy. Lib. of Berlin) his headdress
perhaps represents the symbol of hieroglyphic expression for the phrase
atl tlachinolli (water and fire) used in the sense of “war.”
Weapons, etc.—He carries the atlatl, or spear-thrower, and net-bag of
the wild hunting tribes, bow and arrows, sometimes tipped with down,
also a bag or pouch, in which he carries his arrowheads of obsidian.
Like Mixcoatl he is sometimes clothed in the device of the two-headed
deer, in which he went to war.
MYTHS
Mixcoatl has already been alluded to in the précis of the early
chapters of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas given in the
chapter on Cosmogony, where the circumstances of his birth are touched
upon. In chapter x of the same work he is identified with Amimitl,
another Chichimec deity, seemingly without reason. The Anales de
Quauhtitlan speaks of him as one of the three who “sought the
hearth-stone,” and as one of the priests of the Fire-god. As Iztac
Mixcoatl, according to Motolinia, [317] he dwelt with his wife,
Ilancuêyê, in Chicomoztoc, the “Land of the Seven Caves,” the primeval
land of the tribes, and from them sprang the forefathers of the
natives. By a second wife, Chimamatl, he begot the god Quetzalcoatl. In
the Tlaxcaltec legend reproduced in the Historia de los Mexicanos por
sus Pinturas, [318] mention is made of a two-headed deer which fell
from heaven and was honoured as a god by the people of Cuitlauac, and
it is told how, clothed in its form or disguise, Camaxtli or Mixcoatl
subdued the surrounding tribes.
Iztac Mixcoatl was, indeed, the Chichimec Adam, the father of the
tribe. A hymn to the gods of the hunt, of whom Mixcoatl was the chief,
is as follows:
SONG OF THE CLOUD-SERPENTS
I
Out of the seven Caverns he sprung (was born).
II
Out of the land of the prickly plant he sprung.
III
I came down (was born)
I came down
With my spear made of the prickly plant
I came down
I came down
With my spear of the prickly plant.
IV
I came down
I came down
With my net bag.
I seize him
I seize him
And I seize him, and he is seized.
FESTIVAL
The great festival of Mixcoatl was the hunt-drive in the month
quecholli. Sahagun says of this observance [319]:
“Quecholli was the name of the fourteenth month, Mixcoatl being
honoured with festivals. Arrows and darts for use in war were made, and
many slaves were slaughtered in honour of this god. During the five
days spent in making the arrows, everyone slit their ears and rubbed
their temples with the blood thus drawn. Penance was supposed to be
thus performed before the deer-hunting commenced. Those who did not
slit themselves were deprived of their cloaks as tribute. During these
days no man cohabited with his wife, and the aged abstained from the
use of pulque, as penance was being performed. The four days employed
in the making of arrows and darts being ended, smaller arrows were made
and tied in bundles of four to which were added four pine torches.
These were placed as offerings upon the graves of the dead, besides two
tamalli to each bundle. These remained for a day upon the tombs and
were then burned during the night, other ceremonies being held as well
in honour of the dead.
“On the tenth day of this month the Mexicans and the Tlatelulca
resorted together to the mountain of Cacatepec, which they called their
mother. On reaching it they constructed thatched huts, lighted large
fires, and spent the day in absolute idleness.
Next morning they breakfasted and went out together into the country.
There they spread themselves out in a circular line, in which were
enclosed a large number of animals—deer, rabbits, and others; they
gradually approached them so as to enmesh them in a small space, and
the hunt then began, each one taking what he could.
“After the hunt, captives and slaves were slaughtered in the temple
called Tlamatzinco. They were bound hand and foot and were carried up
the temple stairs in the same fashion as a deer is carried by its four
legs when taken to the butcher. They were put to death with great
ceremony. The man and the woman who represented the image of Mixcoatl
and his companion were slain in another temple, which was called
Mixcoateopan. Several other rites were performed.”
Of this festival Acosta gives a slightly different version:
“The feast they made was pleasant and in this sort: They sounded a
trumpet at break of day, at the sound whereof they all assembled with
their bows, arrows, nets, and other instruments for hunting; then they
went in procession with their idol, being followed by a great number of
people to a high mountain, upon the top whereof they had made a bower
of leaves, and in the middest thereof an altar richly decked, whereupon
they placed the idol. They marched with a great bruit of trumpets,
cornets, flutes and drums, and being come unto the place they environed
this mountain on all sides, putting fire to it on all parts: by means
of which many beasts flew forth, as stags, conies, Hares, foxes and
Woolves, which went to the top flying from the fire. These hunters
followed after with great cries and noise of divers instruments,
hunting them to the top before the idol, whither flew such a great
number of beasts, in so great a press, that they leaped one upon
another, upon the people, and upon the altar, wherein they took great
delight. Then took they a great number of these beasts, and sacrificed
them before the idol, as stags and other great beasts, pulling out
their hearts as they use in the sacrifice of men, and with the like
ceremony: which done they took all their prey upon their shoulders, and
retired with their idol in the same manner as they came, and entered
the city laden with all these things, very joyfully with great store of
music, trumpets, and drums until they came to the temple where they
placed their idol with great reverence and solemnity. They presently
went to prepare their venison wherewith they made a banquet to all the
people; and after dinner they made their plays, representations and
dances before the idol.”
TEMPLES
Mixcoatl’s temples in Mexico were the Mixcoapan tzompantli and the
Mixcoateopan. In the first were preserved the heads of the victims
sacrificed to the god. The ceremony of quecholli was commenced in the
latter.
NATURE AND STATUS
Mixcoatl was primarily the great god of the Chichimecs and the Otomies,
a god of the wild hunting tribes of the plains to the north. Numbers of
these had settled in Mexico City and elsewhere within Anahuac, to which
they had carried his worship with them. The tribal legends connected
with him seem to imply that he was regarded in one of his phases, that
of Iztac Mixcoatl, as the Chichimec Adam or Abraham, and he is even
alluded to as the “father” of Quetzalcoatl and “brother” of
Uitzilopochtli. The probabilities are that he was the god of a section
of the Nahua who entered Mexico proper before the advent of the
worshippers of Uitzilopochtli, and as he had similar characteristics to
the latter deity, he became connected with him in the popular
imagination.
Mixcoatl seems to me one of that large class of conceptions which recur
so frequently in all mythologies—the rain- and lightning-bearing cloud,
which in the mind of the savage takes the form of a great monster, a
dragon or serpent, vomiting fire and discharging water. The name
Mixcoatl means “Cloud-serpent” and serves to substantiate this
conception of him. But in the eyes of a hunting people he came, like
other deities of the kind, to be regarded as the great hunter who casts
the thunderbolt, the lightning-arrow, and therefore as the god-like
prototype of the savage sportsman. Mixcoatl’s possession of the
obsidian arrow-head, which became personified in Itzpapalotl, gives
further weight to this idea.
Because he partook of the attributes of a sky-god, Mixcoatl almost
inevitably became identified with the stellar deities dwelling in the
heavens above. He is, indeed, Chief of the Centzon Mimixcoa, which has
been translated “The Four Hundred Northerners,” the host of stars to
the north of the Equator, in contradistinction to the Centzon Uitznaua,
or “Four Hundred Southerners,” who were scattered by Uitzilopochtli
immediately after his birth. But here a question of some difficulty
arises. Uitznaua may correctly be translated “southerners,” whereas
Mimixcoa can scarcely be rendered otherwise than as the plural of
“cloud-serpent.” The insignia of these latter deities, however, are
certainly stellar. They wear the stellar face-mask and are in every way
to be connected with the stars. It is clear, too, that Mixcoatl in one
of his manifestations must be connected with the morning star. But I
take this connection, as in the case of Quetzalcoatl, to have arisen at
a period comparatively late. Again, we frequently find in Mexican myth
that the stars are regarded as serpentine in character, and indeed, as
in the case of the Tzitzimimê, partake of insect characteristics.
“Mixcoatl” is the expression in use at the present time among the
natives of Mexico for the tropical whirlwind [320]—obviously a much
later conception of his nature, and one more intimately connected with
that of Tezcatlipocâ, as I have attempted to show in the passages
relating to that god, and to Quetzalcoatl. There is, indeed, a strong
resemblance between Mixcoatl and Tezcatlipocâ, both of whom are
connected with obsidian, and carry the hunter’s bag of obsidian darts.
Mixcoatl’s festival is obviously one of considerable antiquity. As
practised in Mexico-Tenochtitlan it was obviously a reminiscence of the
great communal hunt. Its sacrifice of women in the place of deer, the
victims being “carried up the temple stairs in the same fashion as a
deer is carried by its four legs when taken to the butcher,” is
obviously a substitution in more civilized times of human for deer
sacrifice, either because the animals of the hunt were not so easily
obtained or for the reason that the idea of human sacrifice had so
thoroughly interpenetrated Mexican religious usage as to render the
older form unacceptable, merely retaining its broader characteristics.
It has also a strong resemblance to those medicine-hunts until recently
practised by the Indians of North America, and in the Zuñi mysteries of
to-day, a procuring of magical virtue for the arrows which were made
during the first five days of the festival, and smaller models of which
were offered up on the graves of the dead. Mixcoatl’s wife Itzcuêyê is
a deer and, as we have seen, the deer was the disguise of his
surrogate, Camaxtli. The deer is the animal connected in the barbarian
mind with the quest for water or food. Where the deer migrated in
search for these the savage must follow. The animals which compose the
staple food-supply of savages are frequently regarded as their gods. In
America, on the introduction of later anthropomorphic deities, the
animal forms are frequently conceived of as the mates of these—perhaps
one explanation of the belief in descent from animal forms.
Because of his connection with the lightning Mixcoatl was also god of
the fire-twirler, the apparatus with which fire was made, and he
appears in this character during the fire festival.
TLAUIZCALPANTECUTLI = “LORD OF THE HOUSE OF THE DAWN”
Area of Worship: Mexico; Toltec (?).
Calendar Place: With the Fire-god, lord of the ninth week, ce
coatl. Twelfth of the thirteen lords of the day-hours.
Compass Direction: West.
Relationship: Variant of Quetzalcoatl.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
General.—In the Codex Borgia (sheet 25) he is painted as having a
white-and-red-striped body, and the black face with white-spotted
quincunx peculiar to him in his special form as evening star. The hair
is yellow, the locks rising in curls above the brow, and bound by a red
fillet. We can probably recognize him in the figure seen in sheet 19 of
Codex Vaticanus B, which bears a strong resemblance to that found on
sheet 57 of the same MS., confronting the Fire-god; but in the first
instance he is not shown with the black “half-mask” painting about the
eye. He has, however, the same warlike implements—shield, spears, and
atlatl—as in Codex Borgia, as well as a pouch for obsidian arrow-heads
and a small sacrificial flag. He is, however, almost universally
represented with a white or white-and-red-striped body and
face-painting, and the deep black “half-mask” edged with small white
circles which is usually shown in the pictures of Mixcoatl, Paynal, and
Atlaua, and which is described as “the stellar face-painting called
darkness.” He frequently wears long, tapering oval ornaments attached
to red leather thongs in place of the chalchihuitl jewels which so
often depend from the dress of the other gods, and the band which
supports these has four diverging ends terminating in a bunch of
feathers, as with Tonatiuh, Ueuecoyotl, and Xochipilli. The crown is
generally composed of black feathers having white spots, alternating
with longer yellow or red plumes. On the breast is seen an ornament
like that of Tezcatlipocâ. In Codex Borbonicus and Borgia he is
accompanied by the insignia of those warriors who died by sacrifice,
the blue crown with the three-cornered frontal plate, the axe-shaped
blue ear-plug, the blue nose-plug, the white paper shoulder-tie, and
the small blue dog which accompanied the dead man on his way to the
region of Mictlan.
On the five sheets of Codex Vaticanus B which indicate the periods of
the planet Venus we observe Tlauizcalpantecutli depicted five times,
and have thus a most favourable opportunity for studying his various
attributes. All of these pictures represent him in the form of the
evening star, with the quincunx of white spots on the dark background
of his face. He is depicted as half-black, half-white, the body, upper
arms, and knees being black, but the forearms, thighs, and lower part
of the legs white and striped with yellow longitudinal lines, like the
striping on Uitzilopochtli’s body. Under the eye is a motif which
recalls the blue snake-band round the mouth of Tlaloc, but it is yellow
in colour, and forms a kind of coil in the middle of the face over the
nose. A tassel or other ornament falls from it, the whole recalling
certain Maya types. The hair is flame-coloured, curls upward, and is
bound with the usual fillet studded with white slicings from
mussel-shells, and the black, white-tipped feathers, previously alluded
to, and intermingled with eagle-plumes, crown the head. The breast is
covered with the white eye-ring, also described above, and which is
characteristic of Tezcatlipocâ. Accompanying the picture is the emblem
of the stellar eye, which in this place is almost certainly intended to
depict the planet Venus. The god holds in one hand the atlatl, or
spear-thrower, and in the other a bundle of darts, to symbolize his
nature as a shooting god.
In those pictures in Codex Borgia where the god is represented as
casting his spear at various mythological figures, his insignia is in
agreement with that portrayed in Codex Vaticanus B. But of the five
figures in which he is shown as the spear-thrower, in one only is he
depicted with white, red-striped limbs, the remaining figures being
coloured green, yellow, brown, and blue. Nor has the face the
characteristic painting known as “stellar” and frequently described on
those pages, but is skull-shaped, and represented as swallowing blood
and a human heart. He holds, however, the usual spear-thrower, shield,
hand-flag, and the hunter’s net-bag. The Codex Borgia pictures show,
too, the incidence of the god’s other attributes, the oval, egg-shaped
ornaments and the white-tipped black feathers, which, however, are here
considerably shorter, and spread over the crown of the head only. Here
also the first of the five figures is red-striped, the others being
blue, red, and yellow, and red-striped. Like the figures in Codex
Bologna, the first has the head of a skull painted with the face-paint
of Tlauizcalpantecutli, with the quincunx of five disks on a dark
ground. The other four figures wear masks, that part of their faces
which is visible being coloured like the body and having the quincunx
of five white disks. The second figure wears an owl naual, or mask, the
third that of a dog, the fourth a rabbit-mask, and the fifth, like the
first, a dead man’s skull, which, however, is portrayed in its natural
colour and has no face-paint. The owl-mask of the second figure and the
skull-mask of the fifth show that they represent the sequence of five
periods of the planet Venus, five time-counts based on its period of
visibility, and that, moreover, these figures are to be referred
respectively to the compass directions, east, north, west, south,
below. The Codex Fejérváry figure differs from the other
representations, the face being painted white with yellow stripes, like
the rest of the body and limbs. But that this figure is in reality
identical with those of the other manuscripts is proved by the quincunx
of white spots disposed in the same manner as in the Codex Vaticanus B
figure, by the three curly locks on the brow, and by the star-like eye
worn by the god on his breast. In Codex Borgia are shown a sacrificial
cord and two small paper flags. In Codex Fejérváry we see a shield with
feather appendage, and one paper flag, which is evidently intended to
appear in the ritual of the death by sacrifice. Tlauizcalpantecutli was
for the Mexicans an indication of the warrior’s death, that is,
sacrificial death.
In Codex Telleriano-Remensis the hair is plastered with white downy
feathers, and round the neck is slung the aztemacatl, the heron-feather
cord, the whole indicating the insignia of the victim about to be
sacrificed after ceremonial combat. He wears a skull as helmet-mask in
this MS. In the Aubin-Goupil tonalamatl Tlauizcalpantecutli wears a
rod-shaped nose-plug and the blue breast-plate of the Fire-god.
NATURE AND STATUS
This god, as Seler indicates, [321] is a variant of the planet Venus,
the morning star, who was regarded as the shooting god and who was
perhaps identical with Mixcoatl. The Anales de Quauhtitlan says that:
“When he appears he strikes various classes of people with his rays,
shoots them, sheds his light on them,” and these several types of
people thus shot are clearly to be seen in Codex Borgia, and in the
corresponding places of the other manuscripts, where their sequence is,
however, varied. That they stand in relation to the quarters of the
heavens there can be no doubt, but these quarters vary with the several
codices. Thus in Codex Borgia we find the jaguar occupying the north,
while in Vaticanus B and Bologna we find it occupying the fifth or
downward direction, and in this varying arrangement we probably see
differences of local conception. The deities or figures at which the
god hurled his spear are the jaguar, or Tezcatlipocâ, Chalchihuitlicue,
the black Tezcatlipocâ (probably as Tepeyollotl), Cinteotl, the
Tlatouani, or King, and the Yayotl, or the symbol of war; but these do
not agree with the “classes of people” shot by the god as given by the
Anales de Quauhtitlan, which states “that in the sign cipactli he
shoots old men and women, in the sign coatl he shoots the rain, for it
will not rain, in the sign atl, the universal drought, in the sign
acatl, kings and rulers, and in the sign olin, youths and maidens.”
This seems to me to indicate not so much that the god was identical
with Mixcoatl, as Seler states, although he may have had connections
with this deity, but that he typifies in some manner the evil
influences of the rays of the planet Venus at certain times of the
year. We know that the Mexicans, like many other peoples, believed that
the stars emanated influences good and bad, and as Seler himself states
in his essay on “The Venus Period in Picture-Writing,” [322] “it is
possible that we have on these pages simply an astrological speculation
arising from superstitious fear of the influence of the light of this
powerful planet. By natural association of ideas the rays of light
emitted by the sun or other luminous bodies are imagined to be darts or
arrows which are shot in all directions by the luminous body. The more
the rays are perceived to be productive of discomfort or injury, so
much the more fittingly does this apply. In this way the abstract noun
miotl or meyotli with the meaning ‘ray of light’ is derived from the
Mexican word mitl, ‘arrow’ ... thus miotli is the arrow which belongs
by nature to a body sending forth arrows, a luminous body.... When the
planet appeared anew in the heavens, smoke-vents and chimneys were
stopped up lest the light should penetrate into the house.... It is
hardly possible to see anything else in these figures struck by the
spear than augural speculations regarding the influence of the light
from the planet suggested by the initial signs of the period.” Seler
also points out that we possess the analogy of the periods in which the
Ciuateteô, or “spectre women,” send down similar baleful influences
from above.
COYOLXAUHQUI = “PAINTED WITH BELLS”
Relationship: Daughter of Coatlicue, sister of Uitzilopochtli and
the Centzonuitznaua.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Stone-head from Great Temple of Mexico.—This represents her as having
on both cheeks the sign for “gold” and “bells,” hence the face of this
head is really painted (xauhqui) with bells (coyolli). As a
nose-ornament she has a peculiar pendant, consisting of a trapezoidal
figure and a ray, the motif of which is partially repeated in her
earrings. Her headdress is a small, close-fitting cap, the front of
which is embroidered in a downy feather-ball pattern.
MYTHS
The myth which describes her enmity to her mother, Coatlicue, and her
slaughter by her brother Uitzilopochtli, has already been recounted in
the section dealing with the latter god.
NATURE AND STATUS
Coyolxauhqui’s insignia, as seen in the stone head of her from the
great Temple of Mexico, is unquestionably that of a lunar goddess.
Moreover, the terms of the myth referred to above make it plain that
she represented the moon, who is “slain” by the first blow of the
xiuhcoatl, or fire-snake (the dawn). The fact that she was the only
sister of the four hundred stars, Centzonuitznaua, probably implies her
lunar significance.
TZITZIMIMÊ = “MONSTERS DESCENDING FROM ABOVE”
Minor Name: Petlacotzitzquique = “Upholders of the Cane Carpet.”
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Certain wall-paintings at Mitla afford a good representation of the
Tzitzimimê, who are represented as pulling the sun out of his cave by a
rope. In this case their character as stellar deities or demons is well
exemplified. The face often resembles that of a death’s-head and the
hair is puffed up in wig fashion. In Codex Borgia the Tzitzimimê are
represented as female figures with death’s-heads and jaguar-claws.
The insects pictured in the Codex Borbonicus are unquestionably
representations of the Tzitzimimê gods in their demon forms.
MYTHS
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A equates them with the gods of
Mictlampa, or Hades, but his contemporary who edited the Codex
Telleriano-Remensis says of them:
“The proper signification of this name is the fall of the demons, who,
they say, were stars; and even still there are stars in heaven called
after their names, which are the following: Yzcatecaztli, Tlahvezcal
pantecuvtli, Ceyacatl, Achitumetl, Xacupancalqui, Mixauhmatl,
Tezcatlipocâ, and Contemoctli. These were their appellations as gods
before they fell from heaven, but they are now named Tzitzimitli, which
means something monstrous or dangerous.”
Tezozomoc mentions them in his Cronica Mexicana in connection with the
building of the great temple at Mexico. He states that their images
were at one period still necessary for the completion of the building,
and alludes to them as “angels of the air, holding up the sky,” and
“the gods of the air who draw down the rains, waters, clouds, thunders
and lightnings, and who are placed round Uitzilopochtli.” He further
says that these “gods of the signs and planets” were brought to the
sacred edifice and placed round the idol of Uitzilopochtli.
NATURE AND STATUS
The Tzitzimimê are obviously stellar deities. A myth seems to have
existed that they had been cast out of heaven, and may perhaps be
equated with that relating to Xochiquetzal. I think, too, that it had a
connection with the myth which told how Uitzilopochtli routed the
Centzonuitznaua, his brothers, who were also stellar deities or demons
of darkness. That the Tzitzimimê were so regarded was probably because
they were seen during the night, or perhaps during eclipses. The list
of them includes many of the great gods, especially those who had an
uncanny significance, as Tepeyollotl, Mictlantecutli, Tlazolteotl,
Tezcatlipocâ, and Itzpapalotl. The Tzitzimimê are equated by Seler with
the Sky Supporters. [323]