One evening, in February, 1898, I left my desk and, stepping to the
window, looked out at Polaris and the circumpolar region of the sky, with
a newly awakened and eager interest.
For thirteen years I had been studying and collecting material with the
hope of obtaining some understanding of the calendar, religion and
cosmogony of the ancient Mexicans, but had hitherto purposely refrained
from formulating or expressing any conclusions on the latter subjects
having felt unable to extract a clear and satisfactory understanding of
the native beliefs from the chaotic mass of accumulated data under which
they lay like the ruin of an ancient temple. Though frequently
discouraged, I had, however, never ceased to pursue my research and to
note carefully the slightest indication or suggestion which might prove of
ultimate value. Becoming utterly absorbed in the collection of such notes,
I found no time to publish anything during the past four years, though
realizing, with regret, that those interested in my work might be
disappointed at my delay in issuing the papers announced, in 1894, as
speedily forthcoming. Slowly but steadily, however, I was gaining ground.
Various excursions along new lines of research increased my experience
and, in crossing and re-crossing the field of ancient Mexico, I frequently
had occasion to observe certain familiar landmarks, from a new point of
view, and illuminated by rays of fresh light proceeding from recently
acquired sources. It was remarkable how often facts, which had seemed so
hopelessly complicated, finally appeared to be quite simple and
comprehensible. This was noticeably the case with the Aztec deities which,
for years, had seemed to me as numberless. After closely studying their
respective symbols, attributes and names, during several consecutive
months, and subjecting them to a final minute analysis, I found that their
number dwindled in a remarkable way and also verified the truth of the
statement made by the anonymous author of the Biblioteca Nazionale
manuscript which I was editing, that the Mexicans painted one and the same
god under a different aspect “with different colours,” according to the
various names they gave him in each instance.
It was particularly interesting to find that, in assuming that certain
names designated different native deities, the early Spanish writers had
committed a mistake as great as though someone, reading the litany of the
Virgin in a Catholic prayer-book, for the first time, inferred that it was
a series of invocations addressed to distinct divinities, amongst whom
figured the “morning star,” a “mirror of justice,” and a “mystical rose,”
etc. An examination of the texts of several native prayers preserved,
established that the Mexicans addressed their prayers to a supreme Creator
and ruler, whom they termed “invisible, incomprehensible and impalpable,”
and revered as “the father and mother of all.” Some of their so-called
idols were, after all, either attempts to represent in objective form, the
attributes of the divine power, the forces of nature, the elements, etc.,
or rebus figures. As these “gods” or “idols” are enumerated farther on and
are exhaustively treated in my commentary of the Biblioteca Nazionale
manuscript, now in press, it suffices for my present purpose merely to
mention here that the most mysterious figure of Mexican cosmogony,
Tezcatlipoca, whose symbolical name literally means “shining mirror,”
proved to be identical with Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the underworld,
whose title may also be interpreted as “the ruler or regent of the North,”
since Mictlampa is the name of this cardinal point.
The Codex Fuenleal (Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, tomo II, p. 88)
preserves an important myth relating how Tezcatlipoca, after having been
the sun, was cast down from this supreme position by Huitzilopochtli,
“descended to the water,” but had arisen again in the shape of an ocelot,
and transformed himself into the constellation of Ursa Major.
According to Sahagun the native name of this star-group was Citlal-Colotl
or “star scorpion.” Reference to Nahuatl dictionaries revealed that this
insect had doubtlessly been named colotl on account of its habit of
recurving its tail when enraged.
The Nahuatl verb coloa means, to bend over or twist something, the
adjective coltic is applied to something bent over or recurved. The noun
colotli, which is almost identical with colotl, means “the cross-beams,
the mounting, branch or handle of a cross” (“armadura de manga de cruz.”
See Molina’s dictionary).
The above facts show that the idea underlying the name for Ursa Major is
primarily that of “something bent over or recurved.” It is obvious that
the form of the constellation answers to this description. It is,
moreover, extremely significant to find, in the Maya language also, a
certain resemblance between the words for scorpion and for a cross. This,
in Maya, is zin-che and that for a scorpion is zin-au. The above data
justify the induction that the native conception of a cross was connected
with the idea of its arms being bent over or recurved, as in the Mexican
calendar-swastika.
It is important to find the scorpion figured as one of several symbols of
Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the North, in his sculptured effigy preserved
at the National Museum of Mexico (fig. 19).
It is more significant that the verb coloa, besides meaning “to bend over
or twist something,” also expressed the action “of describing or
performing a circle by walking around something.” Now this is precisely
what Tezcatlipoca (the Ursa Major) is represented as doing on page 77 of
the B.N. manuscript, since he figures there, surrounded by a circle of
footsteps. I could but note that this fact showed that the name of Colotl,
applied to the constellation, was not incompatible with its identification
with Tezcatlipoca. Once my attention had been drawn to the action of
walking, performed by this god, I naturally considered, with fresh
interest, the peculiar fact that he is usually represented with one foot
only. The circumstances under which he had been deprived of this member
are set forth in several of the Codices wherein we see that, after he
“descended to the water,” he had an encounter with an alligator, who had
viciously bitten off his foot and carried it away. (See Féjérvary Codex,
pp. 3 and 74. Vatican, II, p. 74.) Pictures representing Tezcatlipoca,
after this event, display the broken end of the tibia exposed and the
transverse section of the bone forming a ring, usually painted either
white or red. Special pains seem to have been taken to accentuate the
hollowness of the bone ring, since its centre is usually painted blue, the
symbolical color of air, and conventionalized puffs of breath or air are
shown as issuing from it (fig. 1). In some cases, as on the sculptured
monolith called “the Stone of Tizoc,” these symbols of breath, issuing
from the broken tibia, are figured in such a way that modern writers,
ignoring what they were meant to represent, were led to identify them as
some animal’s tail attached to the foot of the deity. The hollow circle
and puffs of air, constantly associated with the god, frequently figure as
his ear ornament when his broken tibia is concealed (fig. 2, no. 3).
Besides certain fanciful interpretations which have been given to this
symbol, it has been explained as being a hieroglyph conveying the name
Tezcatlipoca, and consisting of an obsidian mirror=tezcatl, and
smoke=poctli. A possible objection to this assertion might be that in
Mexican pictography, the mirror is invariably represented as jet-black, in
a white or red frame. In the Codex Telleriano Remensis, a combination of
symbols (of water, fire and a serpent) are figured as issuing from the
base of the bone (fig. 1, nos. 5, 6). Having taken particular pains to
collect all representations of the footless god, I was specially
interested in one (Féjérvary, p. 1) in which he is figured as standing on
the cross-shaped symbol ollin, the accepted meaning of which is Four
Movements. The most remarkable and puzzling picture I found, however, is
that (fig. 1, no. 2) in which the jaws of a tecpatl, the symbol of the
North, are represented as holding one of Tezcatlipoca’s ankles in a tight
grip and practically fastening him thus to the centre of a diagonal cross.
In this and other pictures (Codex Féjérvary, 41, 43 and 96) it is obvious
that the artists had endeavored to convey the idea of a person permanently
attached to one spot by one foot. The only form of locomotion possible to
him would be to describe a circle by hobbling on one foot around the
other, which would serve as an axis or pivot. The association of this
peculiarity with the symbols of the North impressed me deeply and
involuntarily caused me to think of a title bestowed in the Codex Fuenleal
upon the supreme divinity, namely, “The Wheel of the Winds;” as well as of
an expression employed by Tezozomoc (Cronica, p. 574). Referring to the
constellations revered by the natives, he mentions “the North and its
wheel.”
[Illustration.]