_Mr. Bullock's Exhibition of Objects illustrating Serpent Worship._
Upwards of sixty years ago, there was opened at the Egyptian Hall,
Piccadilly, what was described as the "Unique Exhibition called Ancient
Mexico; collected on the spot in 1823, by the assistance of the Mexican
Government, by W. Bullock, F.L.S., &c., &c." The illustration attached to
a published description of this collection shows that it contained
reproductions of some of the most remarkable of the serpent deities to be
found in the temples of the western parts of America, and the following
extract will prove interesting to our readers.
"The rattlesnake appears to have been the most general object of worship,
veneration, and fear; indeed it occurs in some manner combined with almost
every other, and is still found in many of the Indian villages. It remains
at Tezcuco, quite perfect at the present time. Broken fragments may be met
in the exterior of the houses in Mexico in several places; the great head
placed at the left of the sacrificial stone is cast from one in the corner
of the fine building used for the Government Lottery Office, and exposed
to the street. It must have belonged to an idol at least seventy feet
long, probably in the great temple, and broken and buried at the Conquest.
They are generally in a coiled up state, with the tail or rattle on the
back, but they vary in their size and position. The finest that is known
to exist, I discovered in the deserted part of the Cloister of the
Dominican Convent opposite the Palace of the Inquisition. It is coiled up
in an irritated erect position, with the jaws extended, and in the act of
gorging an elegantly dressed female, who appears in the mouth of the
enormous reptile, crushed and lacerated, a disgusting detail withal too
horrible for description.
"Turning to a letter from Cortes to Charles V., as given by Humboldt, we
read, 'From the square we proceeded to the great temple, but before we
entered it we made a circuit through a number of large courts, the
smallest of which appeared to me to contain more ground than the great
square in Salamanca, with double enclosures built of lime and stone, and
the courts paved with large white cut stone, very clean; or, where not
paved, they were plastered and polished. When we approached the gate of
the great temple, to which the ascent was by a hundred and fourteen
steps, and before we had mounted one of them, Montezuma sent down to us
six priests and two of his noblemen to carry Cortes up, as they had done
their sovereign, which he politely declined. When we had ascended to the
summit of the temple, we observed on the platform as we passed the large
stone whereon were placed the victims who were to be sacrificed. Here was
a great figure which resembled a dragon, and much blood fresh spilt.
Cortes then addressing himself to Montezuma requested that he would do him
the favour to show us his gods. Montezuma, having first consulted his
priests, led us into a tower where there was a kind of saloon. Here were
two altars highly adorned, with richly wrought timbers on the roof, and
over the altars gigantic figures resembling very fat men. The one on the
right was Huitzilopochtli their war god, with a great face and terrible
eyes, this figure was entirely covered with gold and jewels, and his body
bound with golden serpents, in his right hand he held a bow, and in his
left a bundle of arrows. The little idol which stood by him represented
his page, and bore a lance and target richly ornamented with gold and
jewels. The great idol had round his neck the figures of human heads and
hearts made of pure gold and silver, ornamented with precious stones of a
blue colour. Before the idol was a pan of incense, with three hearts of
human victims which were then burning, mixed with copal. The whole of that
apartment, both walls and floor, was stained with human blood in such
quantity as to give a very offensive smell. On the left was the other
great figure, with a countenance like a bear, and great shining eyes of
the polished substance whereof their mirrors are made. The body of this
idol was also covered with jewels. These two deities it was said were
brothers; the name of the last was Tezcatepuca, and he was the god of the
infernal regions. He presided, according to their notions, over the souls
of men. His body was covered with figures representing little devils with
tails of serpents, and the walls and pavement of this temple were so
besmeared with blood that they gave off a worse odour than all the
slaughter-houses of Castille. An offering lay before him of five human
hearts. In the summit of the temple, and in a recess the timber of which
was highly ornamented, we saw a figure half human and the other half
resembling an alligator, inlaid with jewels, and partly covered with a
mantle. This idol was said to contain the germ and origin of all created
things, and was the god of harvests and fruits. The walls and altars were
bestained like the rest, and so offensive that we thought we never could
get out soon enough.
"'In this place they had a drum of most enormous size, the head of which
was made of the skins of large serpents. This instrument when struck
resounded with a noise that could be heard to the distance of two leagues,
and so doleful that it deserved to be named the music of the infernal
regions; and with their horrible sounding horns and trumpets, their great
knives for sacrifice, their human victims, and their blood besprinkled
altars, I devoted them and all their wickedness to God's vengeance, and
thought that the time would never arrive that I should escape from this
scene of butchery, horrible smells, and more detestable sights.
"'On the site of the church, called St. Jago el Taltelulco, was a temple,
which, we have already observed, was surrounded with courts as large as
the square of Salamanca. At a little distance from it stood a tower, a
true hell or habitation for demons, with a mouth, resembling that of an
enormous monster, wide open, and ready as it were to devour those who
entered. At the door stood frightful idols; by it was a place for
sacrifice, and within, boilers and pots full of water to dress the flesh
of the victims which were eaten by the priests. The idols were like
serpents and devils, and before them were tables and knives for sacrifice,
the place being covered with the blood which was spilt on those occasions.
The furniture was like that of a butcher's stall, and I never gave this
accursed building any name except that of hell. Having passed this, we saw
great piles of wood, and a reservoir of water supplied by a pipe from the
great aqueduct; and crossing a court we came to another temple, wherein
were the tombs of the Mexican nobility, it was begrimed with soot and
blood. Next to this was another, full of skeletons and piles of bones,
each kept apart, but regularly arranged. In each temple were idols, and
each had also its particular priests, who wore long vestments of black,
their long hair was clotted together, and their ears lacerated in honour
of their gods.'"
Mr. Bullock then proceeds to describe a cast of the great idol of the
goddess of war, which he had brought to England with him.
"This monstrous idol, before which thousands of human victims were
annually sacrificed on the altar, is, with its pedestal, about twelve feet
high and four feet wide, it is sculptured out of one solid piece of grey
basalt. Its form is partly human, and the rest composed of rattlesnakes
and the tiger. The head, enormously wide, seems that of two rattlesnakes
united, the fangs hanging out of the mouth, on which the still palpitating
hearts of the unfortunate victims were rubbed as an act of the most
acceptable oblation. The body is that of a deformed human frame, and the
place of arms supplied by the heads of rattlesnakes placed on square
plinths and united by fringed ornaments. Round the waist is a girdle,
which was originally covered with gold, and beneath this, reaching nearly
to the ground and partly covering its deformed cloven feet, a drapery
entirely composed of wreathed rattlesnakes which the nations call
cohuatlicuye or garments of serpents, on each side of which is a winged
termination of the feathers of the vulture. Between the feet, descending
from the body, another wreathed serpent rested its head on the ground, and
the whole composition of this deity is strictly appropriate to the
infernal purpose for which it was used, and with which the personal
ornaments too well accord. From the neck, spreading over its deformed
breast, is a necklace composed of human hands, hearts, and skulls--fit
emblems of the sanguinary rites daily performed in its honour.
"The death's head and mutilated hands, four of which surround the bosom of
the goddess, remind us of the terrible sacrifices of Teoquawhquat,
celebrated in the fifteenth century period of thirteen days after the
summer solstice, in honour of the god of war and his female companion,
Teoyamiqui. The mutilated hands alternate with the figure of certain vases
in which incense was burnt. These vases were called Topxicalli, bags in
the form of calabashes. This idol was sculptured on every side, even
beneath where was represented Mictlanteuchtli, the Lord of the place of
the dead; it cannot be doubted, but that it was supported in the air by
means of two columns, on which rested the arms. According to this
whimsical arrangement, the head of the idol was probably elevated five or
six metres above the pavement of the temple, so that the priests dragging
their unfortunate victims to the altar made them pass under the figure of
Mictlanteuchtli. The Viceroy of Mexico transported this monument to the
University which he thought the most proper place to preserve one of the
most curious remains of American antiquity. The Professors of the
University, monks of the Order of St. Dominic, were unwilling to expose
this idol to the sight of the Mexican youth, and caused it to be reburied
in one of the passages of the College. But Mr. Humboldt had it disinterred
at the request of the Bishop of Monterey.
"A highly curious specimen of Mexican sculpture is an exceeding hard stone
resembling hornstein, a coarse kind of jade, it is a species of compact
tale, of most elaborate workmanship, and the bust of a priest, or perhaps
of the idol representing the Sun. The head is crowned with a high
mitre-shaped cap, decorated with jewels and feathers, it has long pendant
earrings. The hands are raised, the right sustains something resembling a
knotted club, while the left takes hold of a festoon of flowers which
descends from the head; all the other parts are covered with the great
rattlesnake, whose enormous head and jaws are on the right side of the
figure, while the backs and sides are covered with the scales and rattles
of the deadly reptile."
Our prescribed limits are now reached, and we are able to add but little
to what has already been advanced exhibiting the widespread prevalence of
this singular form of worship. Again and again has wonderment been
expressed that it should ever be possible for a creature so disgusting to
become an object of worship, but so it has been, and no age or country
seems to have been strange to it. Very early indeed in history men began
to worship a serpent, that brazen one of the Exodus, which Hezekiah
destroyed on account of the idolatry into which it led the people. But if
that object was put away, the hope that the worship would cease was vain,
for it started up amongst the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Phoenicians,
the Egyptians, and spread into Greece, Esthonia, Finland, Italy, Persia,
Hindustan, Ceylon, China, Japan, Burmah, Java, Arabia, Syria, Ethiopia,
Britain, Mexico, and Peru.
Such was its extent--wide as the world itself, and vast beyond estimate or
description was its influence over the minds of those who came within its
reach. Let the curious reader who would know more, and who would make
himself acquainted with the multitudinous forms in which the emblem was
depicted, study the works of such writers as Kingsford and Montfaucon,
with their numerous and well executed plates, and he will meditate with
astonishment upon the singular fascination which this repulsive reptile
seems to have exercised over the human mind. He is said, we know, so to
fascinate the victim he is about to seize as his prey that the unhappy
creature is deprived of all power of resistance, a fascination no less
overwhelming seems to have paralyzed the human mind and caused it to adopt
from some cause or other such a repelling reptile as an object of worship.
The spell is broken now, however, and but little remains of what was once
so universal, beyond the earth mounds where its temples stood and the half
ruined sculptures collected in the museums of civilized countries.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Deane.
[2] Eusebius.
[3] Aristoph.
[4] Cory's Ancient Fragments, Intro. 34.
[5] Origin Pagan Idol., Vol. 1, p. 175.
[6] Landseer's Sabaean Res.
[7] Coleman's Hind. Mythology.
[8] Origin Pagan Idol., vol. 1, p. 45.
[9] Herrara, Hist. America, vol. iv., pp. 162-3.
[10] Trav. in Yucatan.
[11] Clavigero, vol. 1.
[12] Faber.
[13] Deane.
[14] McCulloch's American Researches, p. 225.
[15] Gesner, Hist. Anim. p. 54, citing AElian.
[16] Deane.
[17] Deane.
[18] Davies' Mythol. of Druids.
[19] Owen's Dict. Art. Draig.
[20] Asiatic Res., vol. 5, p. 514.
[21] Moor's Hindu Pantheon 342.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Characters in larger font are indicated by =large=.
Foonote 21 appears on page 98 of the text, but there is no corresponding
marker on the page.