Realizing that some definite and important meaning must underlie the
remarkable representations of Tezcatlipoca, I resorted to all possible
means to gain an understanding of them. Referring to Nahuatl dictionaries,
I found a variety of synonymous names for a person who limped or was lame
or maimed. Amongst them was Popoztequi from poztequi, the verb, “to break
a leg.” Other names were xopuztequi, xotemol and Icxipuztequi
(icxitl=foot). The latter name happened to be familiar to me, for the
commentator of the Vatican Codex, Padre Rios, gives it as the name of a
god and translates it as “the lame devil.” He records it immediately after
Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the North, and designates it as the name of
one of the four principal and primitive gods of the Mexicans.
The commentator of the Telleriano-Remensis Codex, moreover, records that
these four gods were “said to have been stars and had fallen from the
heavens. At the present time there are stars in the firmament named after
them” (Kingsborough, vol. v, pp. 132 and 162).
Other synonymous terms for lame persons were icxinecuiltic and
xonecuiltic. Tzimpuztequi, on the other hand, besides meaning lame, also
signified something crooked, bent or incurvated. The second name furnished
me with an important clue, for Sahagun distinctly records that the native
name for the constellation Ursa Minor was Xonecuilli and that it was
figured as an S (Historia, 1. VII, cap. 3). Besides, the Academia MS. of
his monumental work contains the native drawing of this star-group
reproduced as fig. 16, no. 1. He also states that S-shaped loaves of bread
named xonecuilli were made at a certain festival in honor of this
constellation, while the B.N. MS. records that a peculiar recurved weapon,
figured in the hands of deities, was named xonequitl (fig. 16, nos. 2 and
3).
The above data furnished me with indisputable evidence of the existence,
in ancient Mexico, of a species of star cult connected with the
circumpolar constellations and with Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the North,
the central figure of the native cosmogony. It was puzzling to find this
god connected not only with the Ursa Major but also with Ursa Minor, but
an indication suggesting a possible explanation or reconciliation of these
apparent inconsistencies is furnished by the descriptions of the strange
ritual performance, which was annually repeated at the festival
Tlacaxipehualiztli and was evidently the dramatization of a sacred myth.
As an illustration and a description of this rite are contained in the
B.N. MS. and the subject is fully treated in my commentary, I shall but
allude here to its salient features. It represented a mortal combat
between a prisoner, attached by a short piece of cord to the centre of a
large circular stone, and five warriors, who fought him singly. The fifth,
who was masked as an ocelot and always obtained victory in the unequal
contest, fought with his left hand, being “left-handed,” a peculiarity
ascribed to Huitzilopochtli. It was he who subsequently wore the skin of
the flayed victim, an action which obviously symbolized a metamorphosis.
One point is obvious: this drama exhibits the victor as a warrior who was
able to circumscribe the stone freely and was masked as an
ocelot—Tezcatlipoca—the Ursa Major, but was endowed, at the same time,
with the left-handedness identified with Huitzilopochtli. This mythical
personage vanquishes and actually wears the skin of the man attached to
the stone; becomes his embodiment, in point of fact, and obtains the
supremacy for which he had fought so desperately. In the light shed by the
Codex Fuenleal, before cited, it was easy to see that the entire
performance dramatized the mythical combat between Tezcatlipoca and
Huitzilopochtli for the position of the ruling power, in the heavens—the
sun. At the same time it was decidedly puzzling to find celestial
supremacy personified by a man, firmly fastened to one spot, the centre of
a stone circle. It was impossible not to perceive the identity of thought
underlying the representation of this prisoner and the pictures of
Tezcatlipoca, the one-footed or lame god—Xonecuilli the Ursa Minor. It was
moreover of extreme interest to note the existence of traditional records,
preserved in the native myths, of changes in the relative positions of
celestial bodies and of the Ursa Major in particular.
Whilst dwelling upon the striking analogy existing between the
representations of Tezcatlipoca held fast by the symbol of the North and
the prisoner attached to what is described either as “a temalacatl, stone
whorl” or “an image of the sun,” my gaze fell on a small model of the
calendar-stone of Mexico, hanging above my desk, and rested on the symbol
Ollin in its centre. The learned director of the National Museum of
Mexico, Señor Troncoso (Anales del Museo Nacional, vol. II), had expressed
his view that this symbol was an actual figurative representation of the
annual apparent movements of the sun, and recorded its positions at the
solstitial and equinoctial periods. I had, moreover, submitted a drawing
of this same figure to the eminent English astronomer, Prof. Norman
Lockyer, and he had corroborated this view and established its
correctness. On the other hand, I had long noted that the _Ollin_ was
usually figured with an eye, the symbol for star, in its centre (fig. 2,
nos. 1, 3), and had also paid particular attention to the fact that the
Mexicans had conceived the ideas of two suns, a young day sun and an
ancient night or black sun. In the B. N. MS., on the mantas worn at their
respective festivals, the day sun is depicted in a somewhat fanciful
manner, in blue and red on a white field. The black sun is, however,
represented in classical style, so to speak, as on the sculptured
calendar-stone, with four larger and four smaller V-shaped rays issuing
from it. In this connection it is well to recall here that the Mexicans
had no specific name for the sun, beyond _Tonatiuh_, which merely means
“that which sheds light” and could equally apply to the stars. In the
picture-writings the image of the sun was employed to convey the word
_Teotl_. But we find that this word, assumed to be equivalent to their
“Dios” by the Spaniards, was also a reverential title bestowed upon
chieftains and superiors and was constantly employed in the composition of
words to signify something divine, supremely beautiful, etc. Whilst I was
pondering on the possibility that the symbol _Ollin_ might have
represented the movements of the luminaries of night as well as the orb of
day, my attention became fixed upon the four numerals in each of the ends
of the symbol and I was struck by a certain resemblance between their
positions and those of the four stars which form the body of the bear in
the constellation of Ursa Major. It was then that it occurred to me, as
mentioned in the opening sentence of this introduction, to look at the
familiar constellations, with a view to verifying the resemblance noted
above. As my gaze sought “the pointers” in Ursa Major, and then
mechanically turned to Polaris, I thought of some passages I had recently
re-read, in Professor Lockyer’s Dawn of Astronomy, realizing that his
observations, dealing with the latitude 26° (taking Thebes as representing
Egypt), could equally apply to Mexico as this country stretches from
latitude 15° to 31°.
[Illustration.]