AZTEC COSMOGONY AND THEOGONY.
“By midnight moons o’er moistening dews,
In vestments for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues,
The hunter and the deer a shade.”
PHILIP FRENEAU.
From the foregoing chapter we see that the ancient Aztec civilization
had nothing in common with the red Indian. Buildings, customs and
religion linked him to a higher civilization, or else prove that he
possessed the germs of self-evolution, enabled him to cope with the
great unknown, and single-handed to civilize himself. The latter process
will be hard to believe, the former will be hard to prove; but for
argument we will take a hasty glance at other nations whose history
corresponds most closely with the ancient inhabitants of Mexico.
The Chaldeans, according to Berosus, held that the world is periodically
destroyed by deluges and conflagrations. They believed that the deluges
were caused by the conjunction of the planets in Capricorn, and the
conflagrations by conjunction in Cancer. The Chaldean philosophers had
also their _Annus Magnus_ or great year, at the end of which the present
terrestrial and cosmical order would terminate by fire and afterwards be
renewed.
The ancient Scythians believed that the world undergoes revolution both
by fire and by water. The Egyptians believed that the earth would
flourish through the interval expressed by the _Annus Magnus_ or great
year, a cycle, as with the Chaldeans, composed of revolutions of the sun
and moon, and terminating when they returned together to the same sign
whence they set out. At the end of each cycle the earth was supposed to
be destroyed by fire or water, and to be renovated for the abode of man.
The Hindoo cosmogony taught the doctrine of secular catastrophes and
renovations. Water is then introduced, over which moves Brahma, the
creator. Brahma then causes dry land to appear and vivifies the earth in
succession with plants, animals and man, then he sleeps 4320 millions of
years--a day for Brahma, and then the earth is destroyed by fire. The
fire is finally quenched by rain which falls a hundred years and
inundates heaven and earth. The breath of Vishnu next becomes a strong
wind by which the clouds are dispersed, and Deity in the form of Brahma
awakes from his serpent couch on the deep and renews the world, and
sleeps again another day. The power of Brahma is thus outlined by
Emerson:
“If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain thinks he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
“Far or forgot, to me is near,
Shadow and sunshine are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.
“They reckon ill who leave me out.
When me they fly I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahman sings.
“The strong god pines for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good,
Find me and turn thy back on heaven.”
The Jews also hold a prophecy that the world was to endure 2000 years
before the flood, 2000 under the law and 2000 under the Messiah, and
then to be destroyed by water, and a large part of the Christian world
accepts the same today.
Orpheus and Menander, early Greek poets who lived in the twilight of
Greek civilization, reproduce the myth of the _Annus Magnus_, and teach
that the earth is to be destroyed at the completion of the cycle. In the
Sybilline books, 1300 years before our era, this faith is shadowed and
the world is destined to endure ten ages, the first of which is the
Golden Age. After a renovation by fire the Golden Age will return, when,
according to Virgil, the serpent will perish; the earth will produce her
crops spontaneously; the kid will no longer fear the lion; the grape
will be borne upon the thorn-bush, and scarlet and yellow and royal
purple will become the native colors of the woolly fleece:
_“Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ_
_Ubera; nec magnos netuent armenta leones._
_Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores;_
_Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni_
_Occidet; Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum._
* * * * *
_Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista,_
_Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,_
_Et duræ quercus sudabunt roscida mella.”_
According to Winchell, the Stoics got the same doctrine from the
Phoenicians, and in speaking of the restoration after the conflagration,
use the same term we find in the Scriptures, though written many hundred
years earlier. Chrysippus calls it “Apocatastasis”--restitution--as St.
Peter does in the Acts. Marcus Antoninus several times calls it
“Palingenesia”--regeneration--as our Savior does in Matthew, and Paul in
his epistle to Titus. The Pythagoreans, who taught the transmigration of
souls, had the same ideas regarding the revolutions as had the Stoics.
Plato taught the same, and Aristotle alone of all the ancient
philosophers, taught the immortality of the soul and a continuance of
the present order of things.
Among the Arabians, the story of the Phœnix is an allegory of the earth.
This bird of fable no sooner crumbles to ashes than she rises again in
more than pristine beauty. They have a similar story of the eagle which
goes to the sun to renew its strength, and David alludes to the myth in
the Psalms where he says: “Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s,”--a
passage which in the Chaldee language reads: “Thou shalt renew thy youth
like the eagle in the world to come.” The Persians represent their god,
Fire, as the final avenger of the earth. The Aztecs, according to
Humboldt, felt the curiosity common to man in every stage of
civilization, to lift the veil which covers the mysterious past and the
awful future. They sought relief like the nations of the old world,
from the oppressive idea of eternity, by breaking it up into distinct
periods or cycles of time, each of several thousand years. There were
four of these cycles, and at the end of each, by the agency of one of
the elements, the human family was swept from the earth, and the sun
blotted from the heavens, to be rekindled again by sacred fire.
The great feast of the “renewal of fire” began on the last day of the
Sothic period of fifty-two years, when the last fragment of time lost by
leap year had been made up. In the evening the fire was extinguished
throughout the valley, and all the earthen vessels were broken in
preparation for the end of the world. At this time every one was in
terrible suspense, fearing he had seen the sun for the last time. The
whole empire was a prey to anxiety, and the people stood on the temples
watching the mountain tops, where bonfires would be lighted if the gods
showed themselves merciful. Then processions of priests marched to the
mountain so as to arrive at midnight, when they solemnly awaited the
turn of the night which would assure them that the sun would rise once
more and continue fifty-two years to the end of the next cycle. When the
critical hour had passed, a priest with two sticks and a rotary motion
of the hands produced the sacred fire. Then a funeral pyre was raised
and the victims sacrificed. Then an extraordinary activity followed the
despondency, and every one lighted his torch from the funeral pile and
hastened to his dwelling, and couriers with the sacred fire spread
through all the empire and the new blaze was kindled in every hearth and
on every temple top, and they were happy for they had fifty-two years
more to live. The thirteen days complementary to the cycle--intended to
make the solar and civil years agree--were spent in whitewashing and
renewing their furniture for the new cycle.
The Aztecs believed in the periodical destruction of the world and had a
tradition of the flood, and their idea of the re-peopling of the earth
very nearly coincides with Jewish scriptures. The following is a
translation of the Popol Vuh, or National Book of the Quiches of
Guatemala; “There was not yet a single man; not an animal; neither
birds, nor fishes, nor crabs, nor wood, nor stones, nor ravines, nor
forests; only the sky existed. The face of the land was not seen; there
was only the silent sea and the sky. There was not yet a body, naught to
attach itself to another; naught that balanced itself; naught that made
a sound in the sky. There was nothing that stood upright; naught there
was but the peaceful sea--the sea, silent and solitary in its limits;
for there was nothing that was. * * * Those who fecundated, those who
give life, are upon the waters like a growing light. * * * While they
consulted, the day broke, and at the moment of dawn, man appeared. While
they consulted, the earth grew. Thus verily, took place the creation as
the earth came into being.$1‘Earth’ said they; and the earth existed.
Like a fog, like a cloud, was the formation; as huge fishes rise in the
water, so rose the mountains; and in a moment the high mountains
existed.”
This is the account of the first creation, and what follows, refers to
the fourth and last creation.--“Hear, now, when it was first thought of
man, and of what man should be formed. At that time spake he who gives
life, and he who gives form, the Maker and Moulder, named Tepen,
Gucumatz;$1‘The day draws near; the work is done; the supporter, the
servant is ennobled; he is the sun of light, the child of whiteness; man
is honored; the race of man is upon the earth.’ So they spake.” * * *
Immediately they began to speak of making our first mother and our
father. Only of yellow corn and white corn were they flesh, and the
substance of the arms end legs of man. They were called simply _beings_,
formed and fashioned; they had neither mother nor father; we call them
simply _men_.
Woman did not bring them forth, nor were they born of the Builder and
Moulder, by Him who fecundates, and Him who gives being. “Thought was in
them; they saw; they looked around; their vision took in all things;
they perceived the world; they cast their eye from the sky to the
earth.” “Then they were asked by the Builder and Moulder$1‘What think you
of your being? See ye not? Understand ye not? Your language, your limbs,
are they not good? Look around, beneath the heavens; see ye not the
mountains and the plains?’
“Then they looked and saw all there was beneath the heavens. And they
gave thanks to the Maker and the Moulder, saying;$1‘Truly, twice, and
three times thanks! We have being; we have been given a mouth, a face;
we speak, we understand, we think, we walk, we feel, and we know that
which is far and that which is near. All great things and small on the
earth and in the sky do we see. Thanks to thee, O Maker, O Moulder,
that we have been created, that we have our being, O our Grandmother, O
our Grandfather!’”[A]
Is there anything more noble in any language than these sentiments of
untutored beings, striving to lift the veil and peer into the beyond? No
philosopher in any land ever gave tongue to more lofty sentiments, nor
approached nearer the real truth of divination, and we must remember,
these sentiments were not borrowed from the Spaniards, but were recorded
in the native writing of Guatemala, ages before the coming of _Los
Conquestadors_. The Aztec worshipped many gods, but he also believed in
one Great God, the “Causer of Causes.” To him was never an image made.
He was reverenced under the name of Teotl, but being invisible and
infinite, they never attempted to make a likeness of him, either in
idols or in painting. They made sacrifice of human beings, but not to
Teotl.
I herewith present a prayer, translated from the Aztec language by
Lucien Biart, and addressed to the Unseen God:--“Mighty God, thou who
givest me life, and whose slave I am, grant me the supreme grace of
giving me meat and drink; grant me the enjoyment of thy clemency, that
it may support me in my labors and in my wants. Have pity on me who live
sad, poor and abandoned, and since I serve thee by sweeping thy temple,
open to me the hand of thy mercy.”
What this lacks of being the Lord’s Prayer, is hardly worth mentioning.
All the other ancient nations we have mentioned, had intercourse with
one another. The Greeks studied in Egypt, and had dealings with the
Phœnicians. The Jews were taken captives to the east and the Hindoos
spread to the west, so it is not strange that they should all have an
almost identical cosmogony, but here is a people separated by an ocean,
having the same belief, a knowledge of the art of building, of sculpture
and of writing. Then how shall we account for all this unless we suppose
that they had known contact with each other in some past age? Alfred
Wallace, the great English scientist, says that none but the
unscientific ever resurrect the Atlantis theory, but with the risk of
being declared unscientific, I wish to present some facts of scientific
value, and leave the verdict with the reader.
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