ANONIMO—“Ten or twelve men’s bodies.”
TORQUEMADA—“Each in three stories, each story of great height.”
MOTOLINIA—“The Great Temples had three stories above the altars, all
terraced and of considerable height.”
Ixtlilxochitl gives the height of the great Teocalli as over
twenty-seven brazas (150′). If this means the height from the ground to
the top of the Oratory of Huitzilopochtli it would very nearly agree
with the height given on the hypothetical section on Plate B.
In the description of the map of the city published in 1524 [see
‘Conquest of New Spain,’ vol. iii. (Hakluyt Society)] I called attention
to the “full human face probably representing the Sun” between the
Oratories of the Teocalli of Huitzilopochtli. The map is, I believe, in
error in placing the Teocalli on the west side of the Temple Enclosure,
but that the full human face is intended to represent the sun is
confirmed by the following passage from Motolinia[8]:—
“Tlacaxipenalistli.—This festival takes place when the sun stood in
the middle of Huichilobos, _which was at the Equinox_, and because
it was a little out of the straight[9] Montezuma wished to pull it
down and set it right.”
[Illustration]
The map of 1524 was probably drawn from a description given by one of
the Conquistadores, and if we turn to the pages of Gomara, an author who
was never in Mexico and who wrote only from hearsay, it is easy to see
how such a mistake in orientation arose.
GOMARA, Historia General de las Indias—Conquista de Mejico. (El Templo
de Mejico.)
“This temple occupies a square, from corner to corner the length of a
crossbow shot. The stone wall has four gateways corresponding to the
four principal streets.... In the middle of this space is an edifice of
earth and massive stone four square like the court, and of the breadth
of fifty fathoms from corner to corner. On the west side there are no
terraces but 113 or 114 steps leading up to the top. _All the people of
the city[10] look and pray towards the sunrise_ and on this account they
build their large temples in this manner.... In addition to this tower
with its chapels placed on the top of the pyramid, there were forty or
more other towers great and small on other smaller Teocallis standing in
the same enclosure (circuito) as this great one, and although they were
of the same form, _they did not look to the east_ but to other parts of
the heaven, to differentiate them from the Great Temple. Some were
larger than others, and each one (dedicated) to a different god.”
The confusion of thought between a temple that faced the east and a
temple where the worshippers faced the east is evident.
There can be little doubt that the steps of the Great Teocalli were on
the west side, that the Oratories of Huitzilopochtli and Taloc were on
the east side of the summit platform, and that their doorways faced the
west. _The priest and worshippers faced the east to watch the sunrise at
the equinox in the narrow space between the two oratories_, and because
the alignment was not quite correct Montezuma wished to pull down the
oratories and rebuild them.
Following from this, it appears to me that Duran was probably not far
from correct in placing the great green sacrificial stone “fronting the
_two_ chambers,” but that Ixtlilxochitl was still more accurate in
placing it towards (hacia) the doorway of the sanctuary of
Huitzilopochtli. The heart of the human victim would be torn out and
held up to the rising sun from the spot where the priest stood to
observe the sunrise.
It will at once be urged against this solution of the difficulties
attending the orientation of the Great Teocalli that the plan and
tracings locate the Teocalli eight degrees from the east and west line,
and that, therefore, my explanation fails. To this I can only reply that
I plotted the measurements, taking the east and west line of the Calle
de Tacuba from the modern map as a datum, and this may vary slightly
from the ancient line of the street. Then I have observed in Maya
temples that sometimes the shrines stand slightly askew from the base:
this is clearly noticeable at Chichén Itzá. If the error of 8° were
divided between the lines of the Temple enclosure, the base of the
Teocalli, and the sides of the oratories, the difference would not
easily be perceptible.
Moreover, we cannot now ascertain the exact spot from which the
observation was made nor the distance between the two sanctuaries. If,
as Ixtlilxochitl states, it was towards the doorway of the sanctuary of
Huitzilopochtli and not between the two sanctuaries as is stated by
Duran, then the error would be reduced.