which fell at the beginning of May, they set apart a year beforehand the
handsomest of the prisoners of war captured during the preceding year.
They clothed him in a costume resembling that of the image of the god.
He might come and go in freedom, but he was always followed by eight
pages, who served at once as an escort and a guard. As he passed, I will
not say that the people either knelt or did not kneel before him, for in
Mexico the attitude expressive of religious adoration was that of
squatting down upon the haunches. As he passed, then, the people
squatted all along the streets as soon as they heard the sound of the
bells that he carried on his hands and feet. Twenty days before the
festival, they redoubled their care and attention. They bathed him,
anointed him with perfume, and gave him four beautiful damsels as
companions, each one bearing the name of a goddess, and all of them
instructed to leave nothing undone to make their divine spouse as happy
as possible. He then took part in splendid banquets, surrounded by the
great Mexican nobles. But the day before the great festival, they placed
him and his four wives on board a royal canoe and carried them to the
other side of the lake. In the evening the four goddesses quitted their
unhappy god, and his eight guardians conducted him to a lonely
_teocalli_, a league distant, where he was flung upon the stone of
sacrifices and his heart torn from his bosom. He must disappear and die
with the god whom he represented, who must now make way for
Uitzilopochtli. This latter deity likewise had his human counterpart,
who had to lead a war-dance in his name before being sacrificed. He had
the grotesque privilege of choosing the hour of his own immolation, but
under the condition that the longer he delayed it the less would his
soul be favoured in the abode of Uitzilopochtli. For we must note that
in the Mexican order of ideas, though the flesh of the victims was
destined to feed the gods to whom they were sacrificed, their souls
became the blessed and favoured slaves or servants of these same gods.
Centeotl, or Toci, the goddess of the harvest, had her human sacrifices
also, but in this case a woman figured as protagonist. She, too, was
dressed like the goddess, and entrusted to the care of four midwives,
priestesses of Centeotl, who were commissioned to pet and amuse her. A
fortnight before the festival, they celebrated "the arm dance" before
her, in which the dancers, without moving their feet, perpetually raised
and lowered their arms, as a symbol of the vegetation fixed at its
roots, but moving freely above. Then she had to take part in a mock
combat, after which she received the title of "image of the mother of
the gods." The day before her execution, she went to pay what was called
her "farewell to the market," in which she was conducted to the market
of Mexico, sowing maize all along the street as she went, and reverenced
by the people as Toci, "our grandmother." But the following midnight she
was carried to the top of a teocalli, perched upon the shoulders of a
priest, and swiftly decapitated. Then they flayed her without loss of
time. The skin of the trunk was chopped off, and a priest, wrapping
himself in the bleeding spoil, traversed the streets in procession, and
made pretence of fighting with soldiers who were interspersed in the
cortege. The skin of the legs was carried to the temple of Centeotl, the
son, where another priest made himself a kind of mask with it, to
represent his god, and sacrificed four captives in the ordinary way.
After this, the priest, accompanied by some soldiers, bore the hideous
shreds to a point on the frontier, where they were buried as a talisman
to protect the empire.
The festivals of Tlaloc, god of rain, were perhaps yet more horrible. At
one of them they sacrificed a number of prisoners of war, one upon
another, clothed like the god himself. They tore out their hearts in the
usual way, and then carried them in procession, enclosed in a vase, to
throw them into a whirlpool of the lake of Mexico, which they imagined
to be one of the favoured residences of the aquatic deity. But it was
worse still at the festival of this same Tlaloc which fell in February.
On this occasion a number of young children were got together, and
decked with feathers and precious stones. They put wings upon them, to
enable them to fly up, and then placed them on litters, and bore them
through the city in grand procession and with the sound of trumpets. The
people, says Sahagun,[21] could not choose but weep to see these poor
little ones led off to the sacrifice. But if the children themselves
cried freely, it was all the better, for it was a sign that the rain
would be abundant.[22]
I will not try your nerves by dwelling much longer on this dismal
subject, though there is no lack of material. At the feast of Xipe, "the
flayed," for example, whole companies of men were wrapped in the skins
of sacrificed captives, and engaged in mock battles in that costume. But
the only further instance I am compelled to mention is connected with
the festival of the god of fire, Xiuhtecutli, which was celebrated with
elaborate ceremonies. At set of sun, all who had prisoners of war or
slaves to offer to the deity brought forward their victims, painted
with the colours of the god, danced along by their side, and shut them
up in a building attached to the teocalli of Fire. Then they mounted
guard all round, singing hymns. At midnight, each owner entered and
severed a lock of the hair of his slave or slaves, to be carefully
preserved as a talisman. At daybreak they brought out the victims and
led them to the foot of the temple stair. There the priests took them
upon their shoulders and carried them up to the higher platform, where
they had prepared a great brazier of burning embers. Here each priest
flung his human burden upon the fire, and I leave you to imagine the
indescribable scene that ensued. Nor is this all. The same priests,
armed with long hooks, fished out the poor wretches before they were
quite roasted to death, and despatched them in the usual fashion on the
stone of sacrifices.[23]
It was after these offerings of private devotion that family and
friendly gatherings were held, at which a part of the victim's flesh was
eaten, under the idea that by thus sharing the food of the deity his
worshippers entered into a closer union with him. We ought, however, to
note that a master never ate the flesh of his own slave, inasmuch as he
had been his guest, and as it were a member of his family. He waited
till his friends returned his attention.
II.
Human sacrifice, Gentlemen, appears to have been a universal practice;
but wherever the human sympathies developed themselves rapidly, it was
early superseded by various substituted rites which it was supposed
might with advantage replace it. Such were flagellation, mutilation of
some unessential part of the body, or the emission of a certain quantity
of blood. This last practice, in particular, might be regarded as an act
of individual devotion, a gift made to the gods by the worshipper
himself out of his own very substance. The priesthood of Quetzalcoatl,
who had little taste for human sacrifices, seem to have introduced this
method of propitiating the gods by giving them one's own blood; and the
practice of drawing it from the tongue, the lips, the nose, the ears or
the bosom, came to be the chief form of expression of individual piety
and penitence in Central America and in Mexico. The priests in
particular owed it to their special character to draw their blood for
the benefit of the gods, and nothing could be stranger than the refined
methods they adopted to accomplish this end. For instance, they would
pass strings or splinters through their lips or ears and so draw a
little blood. But then a fresh string or a fresh splinter must be added
every day, and so it might go on indefinitely, for the more there were,
the more meritorious was the act; nor can we doubt that the idea of the
suffering endured enhancing the merit of the deed itself, was already
widely spread in Mexico. There was a system of Mexican _asceticism_,
too, specially characterized by the long fasts which the faithful, and
more particularly the priests, endured. Indeed, fasting is one of the
most general and ancient forms of adoration. It rests, in the first
place, on an instinctive feeling that a man is more worthy to present
himself before the divine beings when fasting than when stuffed with
food; and, in the second place, on the fact that fasting is shown by
experience to promote dreams, hallucinations, extasies and so forth,
which have always been considered as so many forms of communication with
the deity.[24] It was only later that fasting became the sign and index
of mourning, and therefore of sincere repentance and profound sorrow.
Mexico had its solitaries or hermits, too, who sought to enter into
closer communion with the gods by living in the desert under conditions
of the severest asceticism. Are we not once more tempted to exclaim that
there is nothing new under the sun?
But the devotees of the ancient Mexican religion had other methods of
uniting themselves substantially and corporeally with their gods; and in
accordance with the notions which we have seen were accredited by their
religion, they had developed a kind (or kinds) of _communion_ from
which, with a little theology, a regular doctrine of transubstantiation
might have been drawn.
Thus, at the third great festival in honour of Uitzilopochtli
(celebrated at the time of his death), they made an image of the deity
in dough, steeped it in the blood of sacrificed children, and partook of
the pieces.[25] In the same way the priests of Tlaloc kneaded statuettes
of their god in dough, cut them up, and gave them to eat to patients
suffering from the diseases caused by the cold and wet.[26] The
statuettes were first consecrated by a small sacrifice. And so, too, at
the yearly festival of the god of fire, Xiuhtecutli, an image of the
deity, made of dough, was fixed in the top of a great tree which had
been brought into the city from the forest. At a certain moment the tree
was thrown down, on which of course the idol broke to pieces, and the
worshippers all scrambled for a bit of him to eat.
It has been asked how far any moral idea had penetrated this religion,
the repulsive aspects of which we have been describing. The question is
a legitimate one. I believe, Gentlemen, that in studying the religious
origins of the different peoples of the earth, we shall come to the
conclusion that the fusion of the religious and moral life--which has
long been an accomplished fact for us, especially since the Gospel, so
that we cannot admit the possibility of uniting immorality and piety for
a single instant--is not primitive, but is due to the development of the
human spirit, and to healthier, more complete and more religious ideas
concerning the moral law. At the beginning of things, and in our own day
amongst savages, nay, even amongst the most ignorant strata of the
population in civilized countries, it is obvious that religion and
morals have extremely little to do with each other. Some authors,
accordingly, in the face of all the monstrous cruelty, selfishness and
inhumanity of the Mexican religion, have concluded that no element of
morality entered into it at all, but that all was self-seeking and
fanaticism.
This is an exaggeration. We have seen that amongst the nature-gods of
Mexico there was one, Tezcatlipoca, who was looked upon as the austere
guardian of law and morals. If we are to believe Father Sahagun,--and
even if we allow for strong suspicions as to the accuracy of his
translations of the prayers and exhortations uttered under certain
circumstances by parents and priests,--it is evident that the Mexicans
were taught to consider a decent and virtuous life as required by the
gods. Indeed, they had a system of confession, in which the priest
received the statement of the penitent, laid a penance on him, and
assured him of the pardon of the gods. Generally the penitents delayed
their confession till they were advanced in age, for relapses were
regarded as beyond the reach of pardon.[27] It would be nearer the truth
to say that the religious ethics of the Mexicans had entered upon that
path of dualism[28] by which alone, in almost every case, the normal
synthesis or rational reconciliation of the demands of physical nature
and the moral life has been ultimately reached. For inasmuch as fidelity
to duty often involves a certain amount of suffering, the suffering
comes to be regarded as the moral act itself, and artificial sufferings
are voluntarily incurred under the idea that they are the appointed
price of access to a higher and more perfect life, in closer conformity
with the divine will. The cruel rites which entered into the very tissue
of the Mexican religion could hardly fail to strengthen the same ascetic
tendency, by encouraging the idea that pain itself was pleasant to the
eyes of the gods. But the truth is that in this matter we can discern no
more than tendencies. There are symptoms of men's minds being busy with
the relation of the moral to the religious life, but no fixed or
systematic conclusions had been reached. It might, perhaps, have been
otherwise in the sequel, and these tendencies might ultimately have
taken shape in corresponding theories and doctrines, had not the Spanish
conquest intervened to put an end for ever to the evolution of the
Mexican religion.
I have frequently spoken of the Mexican priests, and the time has now
come for dwelling more explicitly on this priesthood.
It was very numerous, and had a strong organization reared on an
aristocratic basis, into which political calculations manifestly
entered. The noblest families (including that of the monarch) had the
exclusive privilege of occupying the highest sacerdotal offices. The
priests of Uitzilopochtli held the primacy. Their chief was sovereign
pontiff, with the title of _Mexicatl-Teohuatzin_, "Mexican lord of
sacred things," and _Teotecuhtli_, "divine master." Next to him came the
chief priest of Quetzalcoatl, who had no authority, however, except over
his own order of clergy. He lived as a recluse in his sanctuary, and the
sovereign only sent to consult him on certain great occasions; whereas
the primate sat on the privy council and exercised disciplinary powers
over all the other priests in the empire. Every temple and every
quarter had its regular priests. No one could enter the priesthood until
he had passed satisfactorily through certain tests or examinations
before the directors of the _Calmecac_, or houses of religious
education, of which we shall speak presently. The power of the clergy
was very great. They instructed youth, fixed the calendar, preserved the
knowledge of the annals and traditions indicated by the hieroglyphics,
sang and taught the religious and national hymns, intervened with
special ceremonies at birth, marriage and burial, and were richly
endowed by taxes raised in kind upon the products of the soil and upon
industries. Every successful aspirant to the priesthood, having passed
the requisite examinations, received a kind of unction, which
communicated the sacred character to him. All this indicates a
civilization that had already reached a high point of development; but
the indelible stain of the Mexican religion re-appears every moment even
where it seems to rise highest above the primitive religions: amongst
the ingredients of the fluid with which the new priest was anointed was
the blood of an infant!
The priests' costume in general was black. Their mantles covered their
heads and fell down their sides like a veil. They never cut their hair,
and the Spaniards saw some of them whose locks descended to their knees.
Probably this was a part of the solar symbolism. The rays of the Sun are
compared to locks of hair, and we very often find the solar heroes or
the servants of the Sun letting their hair grow freely in order that
they may resemble their god. Their mode of life was austere and sombre.
They were subject to the rules of a severe asceticism, slept little,
rose at night to chant their canticles, often fasted, often drew their
own blood, bathed every night (in imitation of the Sun again), and in
many of the sacerdotal fraternities the most rigid celibacy was
enforced. You will see, then, that I did not exaggerate when I spoke of
the belief that the gods were animated by cruel wills and took pleasure
in human pain as having launched the Mexican religion on a path of a
systematic dualism and very stern asceticism.[29]
But the surprise we experience in noting all these points of resemblance
to the religious institutions of the Old World, perhaps reaches its
culminating point when we learn that the Mexican religion actually had
its convents. These convents were often, but not always, places of
education for both sexes, to which all the free families sent their
children from the age of six or nine years upwards. There the boys were
taught by monks, and the girls by nuns, the meaning of the
hieroglyphics, the way to reckon time, the traditions, the religious
chants and the ritual. Bodily exercises likewise had a place in this
course of education, which was supposed to be complete when the children
had reached the age of fifteen. The majority of them were now sent back
to their families, while the rest stayed behind to become priests or
simple monks. For there were religious orders, under the patronage of
the different gods, and convents for either sex. The monastic rule was
often very severe. In many cases it involved abstinence from animal
food, and the people called the monks of these severer orders
_Quaquacuiltin_, or "herb-eaters." There were likewise associations
resembling our half-secular, half-ecclesiastical fraternities. Thus we
hear of the society of the "_Telpochtiliztli_," an association of young
people who lived with their families, but met every evening at sunset to
dance and sing in honour of Tezcatlipoca. And, finally, we know that
ancient Mexico had its hermits and its religious mendicants.[30] The
latter, however, only took the vow of mendicancy for a fixed term. These
are the details which led von Humboldt and some other writers to believe
that Buddhism must have penetrated at some former period into Mexico.
Not at all! What we have seen simply proves that asceticism, the war
against nature, everywhere clothes itself in similar forms, suggested by
the very constitution of man; and there is certainly nothing in common
between the gentle insipidity of Buddha's religion and the sanguinary
faith of the Aztecs.
The girls were under a rule similar to that of the boys. They led a hard
enough life in the convents set apart for them, fasting often, sleeping
without taking off their clothes, and (when it was their turn to be on
duty) getting up several times in the night to renew the incense that
burned perpetually before the gods. They learned to sew, to weave, and
to embroider the garments of the idols and the priests. It was they who
made the sacred cakes and the dough idols, whose place in the public
festivals I have described to you. At the age of fifteen, the same
selection took place among the girls as among the boys. Those who stayed
in the convent became either priestesses, charged with the lower
sacerdotal offices, or directresses of the convents set aside for
instruction, or simple nuns, who were known as _Cihuatlamacasque_, "lady
deaconesses," or _Cihuaquaquilli_, "lady herb-eaters," inasmuch as they
abstained from meat. The most absolute continence was rigorously
enforced, and breach of it was punished by death.[31]
One cannot but ask whether a priesthood so firmly organized, in which
was centred the whole intellectual life and all that can he called the
science of Mexico, had not elaborated any higher doctrines or cosmogonic
theories such as we owe to the priesthoods of the Old World, especially
when we know that they regulated the calendar, which presupposes some
astronomical conceptions.
But here we enter upon a region that has not yet been methodically
reclaimed by the historians. We have often enough been presented with
Mexican cosmogonies, but the fundamental error of all these expositions
is, that they present as a fixed and established body of doctrine what
was in reality a very loose and unformed mass of traditions and
speculations. The sponsors of these cosmogonies agree neither as to
their number nor their order of succession, and it is obvious that a
mistaken zeal to bring them as near as possible to the Biblical
tradition has been at work. An attempt has even been made to find a
Mexican Noah, coming out of the ark, in a fish-god emerging from a kind
of box floating on the waters.[32]
One thing, however, is certain, namely, that these cosmogonies are not
Aztec. The Aztec deities proper play no part in them. We may therefore
suppose that they are of Central American origin, or are due to that
priesthood of Quetzalcoatl which continued its silent work in the depths
of its mysterious retreats. The contradictions of our authorities as to
the number and order of these cosmogonies suggest the idea that their
arrangement one after another is no more than a harmonizing attempt to
bring various originally distinct cosmogonies into connection with each
other. The fact is that others yet are known, in addition to those which
have taken their place in what we may call the classical list
established by Humboldt and Mueller.[33] In this classical list there
are five ages of the world, separated from each other by universal
cataclysms, something after the fashion of the successive creations of
the school of Cuvier. Each of these ages is called a Sun, and, according
to the elements that preponderate during their respective courses, they
are called, 1st, the Sun of the Earth; 2nd, the Sun of Fire; 3rd, the
Sun of the Air; and 4th, the Sun of Water. The fifth Sun, which is the
present one, has no special name. We cannot enter upon the details
concerning each of these Suns, and they are not very interesting in any
case. They contain confused reminiscences of primitive life, of the
ancient populations of Anahuac, of old and bygone worships, but nothing
particularly characteristic or original. The only specially striking
feature in this mass of cosmogonic traditions is the sense of the
instability of the established order alike of nature and society which
pervades them. What was it that inspired the Mexicans with this feeling?
Perhaps the mighty destructive forces for which tropical countries,
equatorial seas and volcanic regions, so often furnish a theatre, had
shaken confidence in the permanence of the physical constitution of the
world. Perhaps the numerous political and social revolutions, the
frequent successions of peoples, rulers and subjects in turn, had
accustomed the mind to conceive and anticipate perpetual changes, of
which the successive ages of the world were but the supreme expression;
and finally, perhaps that quasi-messianic expectation of the return of
Quetzalcoatl, to be accompanied by a complete renewal of things, may
have given an additional point of attachment to this belief in the
caducity of the whole existing order. What is certain is that this
sentiment itself was very widely spread. It served as a consolation to
the peoples who were crushed beneath the cruel yoke of the Aztecs. They
might well cherish the thought that all this would not last for ever;
and even the Aztecs themselves had no unbounded confidence in the
stability of their empire. The Spaniards profited greatly by this vague
and all but universal distrust. After their victory they made much of
pretended prodigies that had shadowed it forth, and even of prophecies
that had announced it.[34] But the state of mind of the populations
concerned being given, at whatever moment the Spaniards had arrived they
would have been able to appeal to auguries of a like kind, by dint of
just giving them that degree of precision and clearness which usually
distinguishes predictions that are recorded after their fulfilment!