MEXICO
(_Continued_)
I. COSMOGONY[47]
Mexican cosmogonies conform to a wide-spread American type. There
is first an ancient creator, little important in cult, who is the
remote giver and sustainer of the life of the universe; and next
comes a generation of gods, magicians and transformers rather than
true creators, who form and transform the beings of times primeval
and eventually bring the world to its present condition. The earlier
world-epochs, or "Suns," as the Mexicans called them, are commonly
four in number, and each is terminated by the catastrophic destruction
of its Sun and of its peoples, fire and flood overwhelming creation
in successive cataclysms. Not all of this, in single completeness,
is preserved in any one account, but from the various fragments and
abridgements that are extant the whole may be reasonably reconstructed.
One of the simpler tales (simple at least in its transmitted form) is
of the Tarascan deity, Tucupacha. "They hold him to be creator of all
things," says Herrera,[48] "that he gives life and death, good and
evil fortune, and they call upon him in their tribulations, gazing
toward the sky where they believe him to be." This deity first created
heaven and earth and hell; then he formed a man and a woman of clay,
but they were destroyed in bathing; again he made a human pair, using
cinders and metals, and from these the world was peopled. But the god
sent a flood, from which he preserved a certain priest, Texpi, and his
wife, with seeds and with animals, floating in an ark-like log. Texpi
discovered land by sending out birds, after the fashion of Noah, and it
is quite possible that the legend as recounted is not altogether native.
More primitive in type and more interesting in form is the Mixtec
cosmogony narrated by Fray Gregorio García, which begins thus:[49]
"In the year and in the day of obscurity and darkness, when there
were as yet no days nor years, the world was a chaos sunk in
darkness, while the earth was covered with water, on which scum
and slime floated." This exordium, with its effort to describe the
void by negation and the beginning of time by the absence of its
denominations, is strikingly reminiscent of the creation-narrative
in Genesis ii. and of the similar Babylonian cosmogony; the negative
mode, employed in all three, is essentially true to that stage when
human thought is first struggling to grapple with abstractions,
seeking to define them rather by a process of denudation than by one
of limitation of the field of thought. The Mixtec tale proceeds with
a group of incidents. (1) The Deer-God and the Deer-Goddess (the
deer is an emblem of fecundity)--known also as the Puma-Snake and
the Jaguar-Snake, in which character they doubtless represent the
tawny heaven of the day-sky and the starry vault of night--magically
raised a cliff above the abyss of waters, on the summit of which they
placed an axe, edge upward, upon which the heavens rested. (2) Here,
at the Place-where-the-Heavens-stood, they lived many centuries,
and here they reared their two boys, Wind-of-the-Nine-Serpents and
Wind-of-the-Nine-Caves, who possessed the power of transforming
themselves into eagles and serpents, and even of passing through solid
bodies. The symbolism of these two boys as typifying the upper and
the nether world is obvious; they can only be one more example of
the demiurgic twins common in American cosmogony. (3) The brothers
inaugurated sacrifice and penance, the cultivation of flowers and
fruits; and with vows and prayers they besought their ancestral gods
to let the light appear, to cause the water to be separated from the
earth, and to permit the dry land to be freed from its covering. (4)
The earth was peopled, but a flood destroyed this First People, and the
world was restored by the "Creator of all Things."
It is probable that this Mixtec Creator-of-All-Things was the same
deity as he who was known to their Zapotec kindred as Coqui-Xèe or
Coqui-Cilla ("Lord of the Beginning"), of whom it was said that "he
was the creator of all things and was himself uncreated." Seler is of
opinion that Coqui-Xèe is a spirit of "the beginning" in the sense of
dawn and the east and the rising sun, and that since he is also known
as Piye-Tào, or "the Great Wind," he is none other than the Zapotec
Quetzalcoatl, who also is an increate creator. Coqui-Xèe, however, is
"merely the principle, the essence of the creative deity or of deity in
general without reference to the act of creating the world and human
beings"; for that act is rather to be ascribed to the primeval pair
(equivalent to the Deer-God and Deer-Goddess of the Mixtec), Cozaana
("Creator, the Maker of all Beasts") and Huichaana ("Creator, the Maker
of Men and Fishes").
The ideas of the Nahuatlan tribes were similar. Of the Chichimec
Sahagun[50] says that "they had only a single god, Mixcoatl, whose
image they possessed; but they believed in another invisible god, not
represented by any image, called Yoalli Ehecatl, that is to say, God
invisible, impalpable, beneficent, protector, omnipotent, by whose
strength alone the whole world lives, and who, by his sole knowledge,
rules voluntarily all things." Mixcoatl ("Cloud-Snake"), the tribal god
of the Chichimec and Otomi, is certainly an analogue of Quetzalcoatl
or of Huitzilopochtli, like them figuring as demiurge; and Yoalli
Ehecatl ("Wind and Night," or "Night-Wind") is an epithet applied to
Tezcatlipoca, who also is addressed as "Creator of Heaven and Earth."
All of these gods are of the sky and atmosphere, and all of them appear
as creative powers, though mainly in the demiurgic _rôle_. Back of
and above them is the ancient Twofold One, the Male-Female or Male
and Female principle of generation, which not only first created the
world, but maintains it fecund. This being, sometimes called Tloque
Nauaque, or "Lord of the By," i.e. the Omnipresent, is represented as
a divine pair, known under several names. Sahagun commonly speaks of
them as Ometecutli and Omeciuatl ("Twi-Lord," "Twi-Lady"), and in his
account of the Toltec he states that they reign over the twelve heavens
and the earth; the existence of all things depends upon them, and from
them proceeds the "influence and warmth whereby infants are engendered
in the wombs of their mothers." Tonacatecutli and Tonacaciutl ("Lord
of Our Flesh," "Lady of Our Flesh") is another pair of names, used
with reference to the creation of the human body out of maize and to
its support thereby.[51] A third pair of terms, appearing in Mendieta
and in the _Annals of Quauhtitlan_, is Citlallatonac and Citlalicue
("Lord" and "Lady of the Starry Zones"). In the _Annals_ Quetzalcoatl,
as high-priest of the Toltec, is said to have dedicated a cult to
"Citlalicue Citlallatonac, Tonacaciuatl Tonacatecutli ... who is
clothed in charcoal, clothed in blood, who giveth food to the earth;
and he cried aloft, to the Omeyocan, to the heaven lying above the nine
that are bound together." Nevertheless, these deities--or rather deity,
for Tloque Nauaque seems to be, like the Zuñi Awonawilona, bisexual in
nature--received little recognition in the formal cult; and it was said
that they desired none.
[Illustration: PLATE XII.]
Figures representing the heavenly bodies. The upper figure, from
_Codex Vaticanus B_, represents the conflict of light and darkness.
The Eagle is either the Morning Star or the Sun; the Plumed Serpent is
the symbol of the Cosmic Waters, from whose throat the Hare, perhaps
the Earth or Moon, is being snatched by the Eagle. Similar figures
appear in other codices, the Serpent being in one instance represented
as torn by the Eagle's talons.
The lower figure, from _Codex Borgia_, portrays Sun, Moon, and Morning
Star. The Sun-god is within the rayed disk; he holds a bundle of
spears in one hand, a spear-thrower in the other; a stream of blood,
apparently from a sacrifice offered by the Morning Star, which has the
form of an ocelot, nourishes the Sun. The Moon appears as a Hare upon
the face of the crescent, which is filled with water and set upon a
background of dark sky.
In connexion with these primal creators appear the demiurgic
transformers, Quetzalcoatl usually playing the important part.
According to Sahagun's fragmentary accounts, the gods were gathered
from time immemorial in a place called Teotiuacan. They asked: "Who
shall govern and direct the world? Who will be Sun?" Tecuciztecatl
("Cockle-Shell House") and the pox-afflicted Nanauatzin volunteered.
They were dressed in ceremonial garments and fasted for four days;
and then the gods ranged themselves about a sacrificial fire, which
the candidates were asked to enter. Tecuciztecatl recoiled from
the intense heat until encouraged by the example of Nanauatzin, who
plunged into it; and because of this Nanauatzin became the Sun, while
Tecuciztecatl assumed second place as Moon. The gods now ranged
themselves to await the appearance of the Sun, but not knowing where to
expect it, and gazing in various directions, some of them, including
Quetzalcoatl, turned their faces toward the east, where the Sun
finally manifested himself, close-followed by the Moon. Their light
being then equal, was so bright that none might endure it, and the
deities accordingly asked one another, "How can this be? Is it good
that they should shine with equal light?" One of them ran and threw a
rabbit into the face of Tecuciztecatl, which thenceforth shone as does
now the moon; but since the sun and the moon rested upon the earth,
without rising, the gods saw that they must immolate themselves to
give motion to the orbs of light. Xolotl fled, but was finally caught
and sacrificed; yet even so the orbs did not stir until the wind blew
with such violence as to compel them--first, the sun, and afterward the
moon. Quetzalcoatl, the wind-god, is, of course, thus the giver of life
to sun and moon as he is also, in the prayers the bearer of the breath
of life from the divine pair to the new-born.
A complete version of the same myth is given by Mendieta,[52] who
credits it to Fray Andrés de Olmos, transmitted by word of mouth from
Mexican caciques. Each province had its own narrative, he says, but
they were agreed that in heaven were a god and goddess, Citlallatonac
and Citlalicue, and that the goddess gave birth to a stone knife
(_tecpatl_), to the amazement and horror of her other sons which
were in heaven. The stone hurled forth by these outraged sons and
falling to Chicomoxtoc ("Seven Caves"), was shattered, and from its
fragments arose sixteen hundred earth-godlings. These sent Tlotli, the
Hawk, heavenward to demand of their mother the privilege of creating
men to be their servants; and she replied that they should send
to Mictlantecutli, Lord of Hell, for a bone or ashes of the dead,
from which a man and woman would be born. Xolotl was dispatched as
messenger, secured the bone, and fled with it; but being pursued by
the Lord of Hell, he stumbled, and the bone broke. With such fragments
as he could secure he reached the earth, and the bones, placed in a
vessel, were sprinkled with blood drawn from the bodies of the gods.
On the fourth day a boy emerged from the mixture; on the eighth, a
girl; and these were reared by Xolotl to become parents of mankind.
Men differ in size because the bone broke into unequal fragments; and
as human beings multiplied, they were assigned as servants to the
several gods. Now, the Sun had not been shining for a long time, and
the deities assembled at Teotiuacan to consider the matter. Having
built a great fire, they announced that that one among their devotees
who should first hurl himself into it should have the honour of
becoming the Sun, and when one had courageously entered the flames,
they awaited the sunrise, wagering as to the quarter in which he would
appear; but they guessed wrong, and for this they were condemned to
be sacrificed, as they were soon to learn. When the Sun appeared, he
remained ominously motionless; and although Tlotli was sent to demand
that he continue his journey, he refused, saying that he should remain
where he was until they were all destroyed. Citli ("Hare") in anger
shot the Sun with an arrow, but the latter hurled it back, piercing the
forehead of his antagonist. The gods then recognized their inferiority
and allowed themselves to be sacrificed, their hearts being torn out by
Xolotl, who slew himself last of all. Before departing, however, each
divinity gave to his followers, as a sacred bundle, his vesture wrapped
about a green gem which was to serve as a heart. Tezcatlipoca was one
of the departed deities, but one day he appeared to a mourning follower
whom he commanded to journey to the House of the Sun beyond the waters
and to bring thence singers and musical instruments to make a feast for
him. This the messenger did, singing as he went. The Sun warned his
people not to harken to the stranger, but the music was irresistible,
and some of them were lured to follow him back to earth, where they
instituted the musical rites. Such details as the formation of the
ceremonial bundles and the journey of the song-seeker to the House of
the Sun immediately suggest numerous analogues among the wild tribes of
the north, indicating the primitive and doubtless ancient character of
the myth.
II. THE FOUR SUNS[53]
In the developed cosmogonic myths the cycles, or "Suns," of the early
world are the turns of the drama of creation. Ixtlilxochitl names four
ages, following the creation of the world and man by a supreme god,
"Creator of All Things, Lord of Heaven and Earth." Atonatiuh, "the
Sun of Waters," was the first age terminated by a deluge in which all
creatures perished. Next came Tlalchitonatiuh, "the Sun of Earth"; this
was the age of giants, and it ended with a terrific earthquake and
the fall of mountains. "The Sun of Air," Ehcatonatiuh, closed with a
furious wind, which destroyed edifices, uprooted trees, and even moved
the rocks. It was during this period that a great number of monkeys
appeared "brought by the wind," and these were regarded as men changed
into animals. Quetzalcoatl appeared in this third Sun, teaching the way
of virtue and the arts of life; but his doctrines failed to take root,
so he departed toward the east, promising to return another day. With
his departure "the Sun of Air" came to its end, and Tlatonatiuh, "the
Sun of Fire," began, so called because it was expected that the next
destruction would be by fire.
Other versions give four Suns as already completed, making the present
into a fifth age of the world. The most detailed of these cosmogonic
myth-records is that given in the _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus
pinturas_. According to this document Tonacatecutli and Tonacaciuatl
dwelt from the beginning in the thirteenth heaven. To them were
born, as to an elder generation, four gods--the ruddy Camaxtli (chief
divinity of the Tlascalans); the black Tezcatlipoca, wizard of the
night; Quetzalcoatl, the wind-god; and the grim Huitzilopochtli, of
whom it was said that he was born without flesh, a skeleton. For six
hundred years these deities lived in idleness; then the four brethren
assembled, creating first the fire (hearth of the universe) and
afterward a half-sun. They formed also Oxomoco and Cipactonal, the
first man and first woman, commanding that the former should till the
ground, and the latter spin and weave; while to the woman they gave
powers of divination and grains of maize that she might work cures.
They also divided time into days and inaugurated a year of eighteen
twenty-day periods, or three hundred and sixty days. Mictlantecutli and
Mictlanciuatl they created to be Lord and Lady of Hell, and they formed
the heavens that are below the thirteenth storey of the celestial
regions, and the waters of the sea, making in the sea a monster
Cipactli, from which they shaped the earth. The gods of the waters,
Tlaloctecutli and his wife Chalchiuhtlicue, they created, giving them
dominion over the Quarters. The son of the first pair married a woman
formed from a hair of the goddess Xochiquetzal; and the gods, noticing
how little was the light given forth by the half-sun, resolved to make
another half-sun, whereupon Tezcatlipoca became the sun-bearer--for
what we behold traversing the daily heavens is not the sun itself, but
only its brightness; the true sun is invisible. The other gods created
huge giants, who could uproot trees by brute force, and whose food was
acorns. For thirteen times fifty-two years, altogether six hundred and
seventy-six, this period lasted--as long as its Sun endured; and it
is from this first Sun that time began to be counted, for during the
six hundred years of the idleness of the gods, while Huitzilopochtli
was in his bones, time was not reckoned. This Sun came to an end when
Quetzalcoatl struck down Tezcatlipoca and became Sun in his place.
Tezcatlipoca was metamorphosed into a jaguar (Ursa Major) which is
seen by night in the skies wheeling down into the waters whither
Quetzalcoatl cast him; and this jaguar devoured the giants of that
period. At the end of six hundred and seventy-six years Quetzalcoatl
was treated by his brothers as he had treated Tezcatlipoca, and his
Sun came to an end with a great wind which carried away most of the
people of that time or transformed them into monkeys. Then for seven
times fifty-two years Tlaloc was Sun; but at the end of this three
hundred and sixty-four years Quetzalcoatl rained fire from heaven and
made Chalchiuhtlicue Sun in place of her husband, a dignity which she
held for three hundred and twelve years (six times fifty-two); and it
was in these days that maize began to be used. Now two thousand six
hundred and twenty-eight years had passed since the birth of the gods,
and in this year it rained so heavily that the heavens themselves
fell, while the people of that time were transformed into fish. When
the gods saw this, they created four men, with whose aid Tezcatlipoca
and Quetzalcoatl again upreared the heavens, even as they are today;
and these two gods becoming lords of the heavens and of the stars,
walked therein. After the deluge and the restoration of the heavens,
Tezcatlipoca discovered the art of making fire from sticks and of
drawing it from the heart of flint. The first man, Piltzintecutli, and
his wife, who had been made of a hair of Xochiquetzal, did not perish
in the flood, because they were divine. A son was born to them, and
the gods created other people just as they had formerly existed. But
since, except for the fires, all was in darkness, the gods resolved to
create a new Sun. This was done by Quetzalcoatl, who cast his own son,
by Chalchiuhtlicue, into a great fire, whence he issued as the Sun of
our own time; Tlaloc hurled his son into the cinders of the fire, and
thence rose the Moon, ever following after the Sun. This Sun, said
the gods, should eat hearts and drink blood, and so they established
wars that there might be sacrifices of captives to nourish the orbs
of light. Most of the other versions of the myth of the epochal Suns
similarly date the beginning of sacrifice and penance from the birth of
the present age.
The _Annals of Quauhtitlan_ gives a somewhat different picture of the
course of the epochs. Each epoch begins on the first day of Tochtli,
and the god Quetzalcoatl figures as the creator. Atonatiuh, the first
Sun, ended with a flood and the transformation of living creatures into
fish. Ocelotonatiuh, "the Jaguar Sun," was the epoch of giants and of
solar eclipse. Third came "the Sun of Rains," Quiyauhtonatiuh, ending
with a rain of fire and red-hot rocks; only birds, or those transformed
into them, and a human pair who found subterranean refuge, escaped the
conflagration. The fourth, Ecatonatiuh, is the Sun of destruction by
winds; while the fifth is the Sun of Earthquakes, Famines, Wars, and
Confusions, which will bring our present world to destruction. The
author of the _Spiegazione delle tavole del codice mexicano_ (Codex
Vaticanus A)--not consistent with himself, for in his account of the
infants' limbo he makes ours the third Sun--changes the order somewhat:
first, the Sun of Water, which is also the Age of Giants; second, the
Sun of Winds, ending with the transformation into apes; third, the Sun
of Fire; fourth, the Sun of Famine, terminating with a rain of blood
and the fall of Tollan. Four Suns passed, and a fifth Sun, leading
forward to a fifth eventual destruction, seems, most authorities agree,
to represent the orthodox Mexican myth; though versions like that of
Ixtlilxochitl represent only three as past, while others, as Camargo's
account of the Tlascaltec myth, make the present Sun the third in a
total of four that are to be. Probably one cause of the confusion
with respect to the order of the Suns is the double association of
Quetzalcoatl--first, with the Sun of Winds, which he, as the Wind-God,
would naturally acquire; and second, with the fall of Tollan and of the
Toltec empire, for Quetzalcoatl, with respect to dynastic succession,
is clearly the Toltec Zeus. The Sun of Winds is normally the second
in the series; the fall of Tollan is generally associated with the
end of the Sun last past: circumstances which may account for
the shortened versions, for it seems little likely (judging from
American analogies) that the notion of four Suns passed is not the most
primitive version.
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.]
Figures from _Codex Vaticanus A_ representing cataclysms bringing to
an end cosmic "Suns," or Ages of the World.
The upper figure represents the close of the Sun of Winds, ending with
the transformation of men, save for an ancestral pair, into apes. The
lower pictures the end of the Sun of Fire, whence only birds and a
human pair in a subterranean retreat escaped.
Another myth confusedly associated now with the Sun of Waters, now
with the Sun last past, is the story of the deluge. In the pattern
conception (if it may so be termed) each Sun begins with the creation
or appearance of a First Man and First Woman and ends with the
salvation of a single human pair, all others being lost or transformed.
The first Sun ends with a deluge and the metamorphosis of the First
Men into fish; but a single pair escaped by being sealed up in a log
or ark. In the Chimalpopoca (Quauhtitlan) version given by Brasseur
de Bourbourg it is related that the waters had been tranquil for
fifty-two years; then, on the first day of the Sun, there came such a
flood as submerged even the mountains, and this endured for fifty-two
years. Warned by Tezcatlipoca, however, a man named Nata, with Nena his
wife, hollowed a log and entered therein; and the god closed the port,
saying, "Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but a
single ear also." When the waters subsided, they issued from their log,
and seeing fish about, they built a fire to roast them. Citlallatonac
and Citlalicue, beholding this from the heavens, said: "Divine Lord,
what is this fire? Wherefore does this smoke cloud the sky?" Whereupon
Tezcatlipoca descended in anger, crying, "What fire is this?" And he
seized the fishes and transformed them into dogs. Certainly one would
relish an elaboration of this tale; for it would seem that a theft
of the fire must precede--perhaps a suffering Prometheus may have
followed--the anger of the gods. In another version the Mexican Noah is
named Coxcox, his wife bears the name of Xochiquetzal; and it is said
that their children, born dumb, received their several forms of speech
from the birds. Now Xochiquetzal is associated (doubtless as a festal
goddess) with Tollan and the age in which she appears is the last of
all, that in which Tollan is destroyed; whence the deluge is placed at
the end of the fourth Sun.
To the same group of events--the passing of Tollan and the
deluge--belong the stories of the building of the great pyramid of
Cholula and the portents which accompanied it. It is said[54] that,
reared by a chief named Xelua, who escaped the deluge, it was built
so high that it appeared to reach heaven; and that they who reared it
were content, "since it seemed to them that they had a place whence
to escape from the deluge if it should happen again, and whence they
might ascend into heaven"; but "a chalcuitl, which is a precious stone,
fell thence [i.e. from the skies] and struck it to the ground; others
say that the chalcuitl was in the shape of a toad; and that whilst
destroying the tower it reprimanded them, inquiring of them their
reason for wishing to ascend into heaven, since it was sufficient for
them to see what was on the earth." It is worth while to remember that
the hybristic scaling of heaven is no uncommon motive in American
Indian myth, while the moral of the tale is honestly pagan--"mortal
things are the behoof of mortals," saith Pindar; nor can we fail to see
in the green jewel the jealous Earth-Titaness, for the toad is Earth's
symbol.
The duration of the cosmic Suns is given various values by the
recorders of the myths. These, no doubt, issued from variations
in calendric computations; for the Mexicans not only possessed an
elaborate calendar; they also used it, in its involved circles of
returning signs, as the foundation for calculating the cycles of cosmic
and of human history. It is essential, therefore, if the genius of
Mexican myth be fully grasped, that the elements of its calendar be
made clear.
III. THE CALENDAR AND ITS CYCLES[55]
The Mexican calendar is one of the most extraordinary inventions of
human intelligence. Elsewhere the science of the calendar is a lore of
sun, moon, and stars, and of their synodic periods; in the count of
time astronomy is mistress, and number is but the handmaiden. In the
Mexican system this relation is distinctly reversed: it is number that
is dominant, and astronomy that is ancillary. One might, indeed, add
that the number is geometric. It is common enough elsewhere to find the
measures of space influencing the measures of time, but ordinarily they
are the measures of celestial, not of terrestrial, space; and they are,
therefore, moving, and not stationary, numbers. In the Mexican system
the controlling numerical ideas appear to be the 4 (5) and the 6 (7)
of the world-quarters--these in their duplicate forms, 9 (= 2 x 4 + 1)
and 13 (= 2 x 6 + 1)--and all are under the domination of the four by
five digits (two fives of fingers and two of toes) of their vigesimal
system of counting. Man in the Middle Place of his cosmos; oriented
to the rising Sun; four-square with the Quarters, which are duplicate
in the Above and the Below; counting his natural days by his natural
digits: this is the image which makes most plausible our explanations
of the peculiarly earth-tethered calendar of the Mexicans, and, in
consequence, of a cosmographical rather than an astrological conception
of the Fates and Influences.
Not that the moving heavens were without computation: astronomy,
though secondary, was indispensable.[56] The day, of course, is the
creation of the journey of the sun; and the day, as a time-unit, plays
in the Mexican count a part altogether commensurate in importance
with that given to the sun in myth and ritual. The moon, though far
less prominent in every respect, is still conspicuously figured.
The morning star (far and wide a great deity of the American Indian
nations) was second in significance only to the sun; indeed, one of
the most extraordinary achievements of aboriginal American science
was the identification of Phosphorus and Hesperus as the same star,
and the computation of a Venus-period of five hundred and eighty-four
days (the exact period being five hundred and eighty-three days and
twenty-two hours). Comets and meteors were regarded as portents;
the Milky Way was the skirt of Citlalicue, or was the white hair of
Mixcoatl of the Zenith; and in the patterns of the stars were seen the
figures that define the topography of the nocturnal heavens. Sahagun
mentions three constellations, which he vaguely identifies with Gemini,
Scorpio, and Ursa Minor; and in the chart of heavenly bodies, given
with his Nahuatlan text, he figures two other stellar groups; while
five is the number which Tezozomoc names as those for which the king
elect must keep watch on the night of his vigil. Doubtless many other
star-patterns were observed, but these five seem predominant. Stansbury
Hagar, resolving what he regards as the Mexican Scorpio into Scorpio
and Libra, would see in Sahagun's figures half of the zodiacal twelve;
and in both Mexico and Peru he believes that he has identified a series
of signs closely equivalent to that of the Old World zodiac. Another
view (presented by Zelia Nuttall) conceives the Aztec constellations
as forming a series of twenty, corresponding to the twenty day-signs
employed in the calendar. A third interpretation, on the whole,
accordant with the evidence, is that of Seler, who maintains that the
five constellations named by Sahagun and Tezozomoc represent, instead
of a zodiac, the four quarters and the zenith of the sky-world, and
are, therefore, spatial rather than temporal guides. Seler identifies
Mamalhuaztli, "the Fire-Sticks," with stars of the east, in or near
Taurus. The Pleiades, rising in the same neighbourhood, he believes to
have been the sign of the zenith; and at the beginning of a new cycle
of fifty-two years the new fire was kindled when the Pleiades were in
the zenith at midnight--the very hour, according to Tezozomoc, when
the king rises to his vigil. Citlalachtli, "the Star Ball-Ground,"
is called "the North and its Wheel" by Tezozomoc, and must refer
to the stars which revolve about the northern pole. Colotlixayac,
"Scorpion-Face," marks the west; while Citlalxonecuilli--so named,
Sahagun tells us, from its resemblance to S-shaped loaves of bread
which were called _xonecuilli_--is clearly identified by Tezozomoc
with the Southern Cross and adjacent stars. Thus it appears (granting
Seler's interpretation) that the constellations served but to mark the
pillars of this four-square world.
Essentially the Mexican calendar is an elaborate day-count. As with
many other American peoples, the system of notation was vigesimal
(probably developed from a quinary mode of counting), and the days
were accordingly reckoned by twenties: twenty pictographs served as
day-signs, endlessly repeated like the names of the days of the week.
These twenty-day periods are commonly called "months" (following the
usage of Spanish writers), though they have no relation to the moon
and its phases; they are, however, like our months, used as measures
of the primitive solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days,
the Aztec year comprising eighteen months (or sets of twenties) plus
five _nemontemi_, or "Empty Days," regarded as unlucky. According to
Sahagun, six _nemontemi_ were counted every fourth year; if this were
true (it is widely doubted), the Mexicans would have had a calendar
which was Julian in effect. Like our months, each of the eighteen
twenties of the solar year had its own name and its characteristic
religious festivals; during the _nemontemi_ there were neither feasts
nor undertakings. The beginning of the solar year is placed by Sahagun
on the first day of the month Atlcaualco--corresponding, he says, to
February 2--the period of the cessation of rains, and the time of rites
in honour of Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue. Some authorities, however,
believe that the year really began with Toxcatl, corresponding to
the earlier part of May, the period of the celebration of the great
festival of Tezcatlipoca, when his personator was sacrificed and the
next year's victim was chosen. The location of the _nemontemi_ in the
year is not certain.
From the fact that to the days of the year were assigned twenty
endlessly repeating signs, and the further fact that the _nemontemi_
were five in number (18 x 20 + 5 = 365), it follows that the first
day of the year would always fall upon one of four signs; and these
signs--_Colli_ ("House"), _Tochtli_ ("Rabbit"), _Acatl_ ("Reed"), and
_Tecpatl_ ("Flint")--inevitably became emphasized in the imagination,
not only with units of time, but also with the Quarters which divide
the world.
But the designation of the days was not simply by the series of
pictographic signs. An additional series was formed of the numbers
one to thirteen, which, like the signs, were repeated over and over;
so that each day had not only a sign, but also a number. Since only
thirteen numerals were employed, it follows that if any given twenty
days have the number one accompanying the sign of its first day, the
sign of the first day of the ensuing twenty days will be accompanied
by the number eight, the sign of the first day of the third twenty by
two, and so on; not until the end of two hundred and sixty days (since
thirteen is a prime number) will the same number recur with the initial
sign. The representation of this period of thirteen by twenty days, in
which the cycles of numerals and pictographs passed from an initial
correspondence to its first recurrence, was called by the Aztec the
_Tonalamatl_, or "Book of Good and Bad Days"--a set of signs employed
for divination as the name implies. Since the _Tonalamatl_ represents
only two hundred and sixty days, it follows that the last one hundred
and fifteen days of the year will have the same signs and numerals as
the first one hundred and fifteen. For this reason De Jonghe and some
others believe that a third set of day-signs was employed--the nine
Lords of the Night, which (since two hundred and sixty is not evenly
divisible by nine) would suffice to differentiate the days throughout
the year. Seler, however maintains that he has disproved this theory;
if so, there would still be the possibility of differentiating the days
of the second _Tonalamatl_ from those of the first by employing
the sign of that one of the eighteen "months" in which the day fell.
[Illustration: PLATE XIV.]
The Aztec "Calendar Stone," one of the two monuments (see Plate V for
the other) found beneath the pavement of the plaza of the city of
Mexico in 1790. The outer band of decoration is formed of two "Fire
Snakes" (cf. Plates VII 3 and XXI), each with a human head in its
mouth; between the tips of the serpents' tails is a glyph giving the
date, 13 Acatl, of the historical Sun, that is, the beginning of the
present Age of the World. A decorative band formed of the twenty day
signs surrounds the central figure, which consists of a Sun-face, with
the glyph 4 Olin; while in the four adjacent compartments are the
names of the eras of the four earlier "Suns." Sun rays, with other
figures, appear in the spaces between the inner and outer decorative
bands. Below is given a key (after Joyce, _Mexican Archaeology_, page
74).
[Illustration: Key.]
In addition to the _Tonalamatl_, there is another consequence of
the double designation of the days. Each year, it has been noted,
begins with one of four day-signs. But three hundred and sixty-five
is indivisible, evenly, by thirteen; therefore, the day-signs and
numerals for succeeding years must vary, the day-signs recurring in
the same order every four years, and the numerals in the same order
every thirteen years (since 365 = 13 x 28 + 1), while not until there
has elapsed four times thirteen years will the same day-sign and the
same numeral occur on the first day of the year. These divisions of the
years into groups, determined by their signs and numbers, were of great
significance to the Mexican peoples. The sign which began each group
of thirteen years was regarded as dominant during that period, and as
each of these signs was dedicated to one of the four Quarters, it is to
be supposed that the powers of the ruling sign determined the fortunes
of the period. The cycle was complete when, at the end of fifty-two
years, the same sign and number recurred as the emblem of the year.
Such an epoch was the occasion for prognostics and dread anticipations,
and it was celebrated with a special feast at which all fires were
extinguished and a new flame was kindled on the breast of a sacrificial
victim. This festival was called "the Knot of the Years," and in Aztec
pictography past periods were represented by bundles, each signifying
such a cycle of fifty-two years.
It will be noted that the fifty-two year cycle is also the period for
the recurring coincidence of the day-signs and numerals in the year
and in the _Tonalamatl_ (for, 365 factoring 73 x 5, and 260 factoring
52 x 5, it follows that 52 years will equal 73 _Tonalamatls_). It is,
therefore, the more extraordinary that in the usual mode of figuring
the _Tonalamatl_ it is begun, not with one of the four signs which name
the years and their cycles, but with another day-sign, _Cipactli_
("Crocodile"). The plausible explanation of this is that since the
Crocodile was the monster from which Earth was formed by the creative
gods, the divinatory period was inaugurated under his sign.
The origin of so peculiar a reckoning as the _Tonalamatl_ is one of
the puzzles of Americanist studies. Effort has been made to connect
it with lunar movements, but no astronomical period corresponds with
it. Again, it has been pointed out that the two hundred and sixty
days of the _Tonalamatl_ approximate the period of gestation, and
in view of its use, for divinations and horoscopic forecasts, this
is not impossible as an explanation of its origin. The obvious fact
that it expresses the cycle of coincidence of the twenty day-signs
and thirteen numerals only carries the puzzle back to the origination
of the numeration, with its anomalous thirteen--for which, as a
significant number, no more satisfactory astronomical reason has been
suggested than León y Gama's, that it represents half of the period
of the moon's visibility. In myth the invention of the _Tonalamatl_
is ascribed to Cipactonal and Oxomoco (in whom Señor Robelo sees the
personification of Day and Night), and again to Quetzalcoatl. At his
immolation the heart of Quetzalcoatl, it will be recalled, flew upward
to become the Morning Star, and in special degree the god is associated
with this star. "They said that Quetzalcoatl died when the star
became visible, and henceforward they called him Tlauizcalpantecutli,
'Lord of the Dawn.' They said that when he died he was invisible for
four days; they said he wandered in the underworld, and for four
days more he was bone. Not until eight days were past did the great
star appear. Quetzalcoatl then ascended the throne as god." One of
the early writers, Ramon y Zamora, states that the _Tonalamatl_ was
determined by the Mexicans as the period during which Venus is visible
as the evening star; and Förstemann discovered representations of
the Venus-year of five hundred and eighty-four days divided into
periods of ninety, two hundred and fifty, eight, and two hundred and
thirty-six days, which he estimated to represent respectively the
period of Venus's invisibility during superior conjunction (ninety
days), of its visibility as evening star (two hundred and fifty days),
of its invisibility during inferior conjunction (eight days), and of
its visibility as morning star (two hundred and thirty-six days).
The near correspondence of the period of two hundred and fifty days
with the _Tonalamatl_, coupled with the identity of the eight days'
invisibility with the period of Quetzalcoatl's wandering and lying
dead in the underworld, which was followed by his ascension to the
throne of the eastern heaven, as related in the myth, give plausibility
to the traditions which associate the formation of the _Tonalamatl_
with the Venus-period. Seler suggests--and this is perhaps the best
explanation yet offered--that the _Tonalamatl_ is the product of an
indirect association of the solar year (three hundred and sixty-five
days) and of the Venus-period (five hundred and eighty-four days), for
the least common multiple of the numbers of days in these two periods
is twenty-nine hundred and twenty days, equal to eight solar years and
five Venus years; in associating the two, he says, the inventors of
the calendar lighted upon the number thirteen (8 + 5), and hence upon
the _Tonalamatl_ of two hundred and sixty days. If this be the case,
the belief in thirteen heavens and thirteen hours of the day would
be derivative from temporal rather than spatial observations, from
astronomy rather than cosmography. A somewhat analogous association
might be offered in connexion with the nine of the heavens and the nine
of the hours of the night; for just as there are four signs that always
recur as the designations of the solar years, so for the Venus-period
there are five (since five hundred and eighty-four divided by twenty
leaves four as divisor of the signs), and the sum of these is nine.
The signs which inaugurate the Venus periods are _Cipactli_
("Crocodile"), _Coatl_ ("Snake"), _Atl_ ("Water"), _Acatl_ ("Reed"),
and _Olin_ ("Motion"). But here again the numerals enter in to
complicate the series, so that while the day-signs which inaugurate
the Venus-periods recur in groups of five, they do not recur with the
same numeral until the lapse of thirteen times five periods. This great
cycle of Venus-days, comprising sixty-five repetitions of the apparent
course of the planet, is also a common multiple of the solar year and
of the _Tonalamatl_, comprising one hundred and four of the former and
one hundred and forty-six of the latter. Thus it was that at the end
of one hundred and four years of three hundred and sixty-five days the
same sign and number-series recurred in the three great units of the
Aztec calendar. When it is remembered that prognostics were to be drawn
not merely from the complex relations of the signs to their place in
each of the three time-units, with their respective elaborations into
cycles; but from their further relations with the regions of the upper
and lower worlds, and also from the numerals, which had good and evil
values of their own, it will be seen that the Mexican priests were in
possession of a fount of craft not second to that of the astrologers of
the Old World.
That so complex a system could easily give rise to error is evident,
and it is probable that, as tradition asserts, from time to time
corrections were made, serving as the inauguration of new "Suns" or
as new "inventions" of time. It may even be that the "Suns" of the
cosmogonic myths are reminiscences of calendric corrections, and it is
at least a striking coincidence that the traditions of these "Suns"
make them four in number, like the year-signs, or five in number, like
the Venus-signs. The latter series, too, is distinctly cosmogonic in
symbolism--Crocodile suggests the creation from a fish-like monster;
Snake, the falling heavens; Water, the "Water-Sun" and the deluge; Reed
(the fire-maker), the Sun of Fire; Motion, the Sun of Wind, or perhaps
the Earthquake. But whatever be the value of these symbolisms, it is
certain that the Mexicans themselves associated perilous times and
cataclysmic changes with the rounding out of their cycles.
IV. LEGENDARY HISTORY
The cosmogonic and calendric cycles (intimately associated) profoundly
influenced the Mexican conception of history. Orderly arrangement of
time is as essential to an advancing civilization as the ordering of
space, and it is natural for the human imagination to form all of its
temporal conceptions into a single dramatic unity--a World Drama, with
its Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Judgement; or a Cosmic Evolution
from Nebula to Solar System, and Solar System to Nebula. In the making,
such cosmic dramas start from these roots: (1) Cosmogony and Theogony,
for which there is no simpler image in nature than the creation of
the Life of Day from the Chaos of Night at the command of the Lord of
Light; (2) "Great Years," or calendric cycles, formed by calculations
of the synodic periods of sun and moon and wandering stars, or, as in
the curious American instance, mainly from simple day-counts influenced
by a complex symbolism of numbers and by an awkward notation; (3) the
recession of history, back through the period of record to that of
racial reminiscence and of demigod founders and culture-heroes. Of
these three elements, the first and third constitute the material,
while the second becomes the form-giver--the measure of the duration of
the acts and scenes of the drama, as it were--adding, however, on the
material side, the portents and omens imaged in the stars.
The Mexican system of cosmic Suns is a capital example of the first
element--each Sun introducing a creation or restoration, and each
followed by an elemental destruction, while all are meted out in formal
cycles. It is no matter for wonder that there are varying versions of
the order and number of the cosmogonic cycles, nor that a nebulous and
legendary history is varyingly fitted into the cyclic plan; for each
political state and cultural centre tended to develop its own stories
in connexion with its own records and traditions. Nevertheless, there
is a broad scheme of historic events common to all the more advanced
Nahuatlan peoples, the uniformity of which somewhat argues for its
truly historic foundation. This is the legend which assigns to the
plateau of Anahuac three successive dominations, that of the Toltec,
that of the Chichimec nations, and that of the Aztec and their allies.
Although the remote Toltec period is clouded in myth, archaeology tends
to support the truth of the tales of legendary Tollan, at least to
the extent of identifying the site of a city which for a long period
had been the centre of a power that was, by Mexican standards, to be
accounted civilized.
The general characters of Toltec civilization, as tradition shows it,
are those recorded by Sahagun.[57] The Toltec were clever workmen
in metals, pottery, jewellery, and fabrics, indeed, in all the
industrial arts. They were notable builders, adorning the walls of
their structures with skilful mosaic. They were magicians, astrologers,
medicine-men, musicians, priests, inventors of writing, and creators
of the calendar. They were mannerly men, and virtuous, and lying was
unknown among them. But they were not warlike--and this was to be their
ruin.
[Illustration: PLATE XV.]
The temple of Xochicalco, partially restored. The relief band, of
which a section is given for detail, shows a serpent; a human figure,
doubtless a deity, is seated beneath one of the great coils. After
photographs in the Peabody Museum.
Their principal deity was Quetzalcoatl, and his chief priest bore the
same name. The temple of the god was the greatest work of their hands.
It was composed of four chambers: that to the east, of gold; that to
the west, encrusted with turquoise and emerald; that to the south,
with sea-shells and silver; that to the north, with reddish jasper
and shell. In another similar shrine, plumage of the several colours
adorned the four apartments. The explicator of Codex Vaticanus A says
that Quetzalcoatl was the inventor of round temples (it is possible
that the rotundity of his shrines was due to the presumption that
the wind does not love corners), and that he founded four; in the
first princes and nobles fasted; the second was frequented by
the lower classes; the third was "the House of the Serpent," and here
it was unlawful to lift the eyes from the ground; the fourth was "the
Temple of Shame," where were sent sinners and men of immoral life.
Details such as these--obviously referring to familiar features of
American Indian ritual--as well as the numerous myths that narrate the
departure of Quetzalcoatl for the mysterious Tlapallan, followed by a
great part of the Toltec population, clearly belong in the realm of
fancy, shimmeringly veiling historic facts. Thus, when Ixtlilxochitl
states that the reign of each Toltec king was just fifty-two years,
we see simply a statement which identifies calendric with political
periods; yet when he goes on with the qualification that those kings
who died under such a period were replaced by regents until a new cycle
could begin with the election of a new king, and when he specifically
notes that, as exceptions, Ilacomihua reigned fifty-nine years, and
Xiuhquentzin, his queen, four years after him, we are in the presence
of a tradition which looks much more like history than myth--for there
is no mythic reason that satisfies this shift. Fact, too, should
underlie Sahagun's naïve remark that the Toltec were expert in the
Mexican tongue, although they did not speak it with the perfection
of his day, and again that communities which spoke a pure Nahua were
composed of descendants of Toltecs who remained in the land when
Quetzalcoatl departed--for behind such notions should lie a story of
linguistic supersession.
Such, indeed, appears to have been the course of events. The date of
the founding of Tollan, according to the _Annals of Quauhtitlan_,
is, computed in our era, 752 A. D. Ixtlilxochitl puts the beginning
of the Toltec kingship as early as 510 A. D.; and the end he sets
in the year 959, when the last Toltec king, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl,
was overthrown and departed, none knew whither. It is a plausible
hypothesis which assumes the historicity of this event and which
accounts for the myths of the departure of Quetzalcoatl, the god,
as due in part to a confusion of the permutations of a nature deity
with the _gesta_ of an earthly hero--a process exemplified in the Old
World in the tales of King Arthur, Celtic god and British hero-king.
It is certain that from an early date the civilization of the Mexican
plateau was racially akin to that of the Maya in the south; it is not
improbable that the Toltec represent an ancient northern extension of
Maya power (the oldest stratum at Tollan shows Huastec influences,
and the Huastec are of Maya kin); and, finally, when the political
overthrow of the Toltec was accomplished, and their leaders fled away
to Tlapallan, to the south-east, the northern barbarians who had
replaced them gradually learned the lesson of civilization from the
sporadic groups which remained in various centres after the capital
had fallen--Cholula, Cuernavaca, and Teotihuacan, cities which were to
figure in Nahuatlan lore as the centres of priestly learning. Such an
hypothesis would account for Sahagun's statement that the Toltec spoke
Nahua imperfectly, for those who remained would have changed to this
language; while what may well be an historical incident of the period
of change is Ixtlilxochitl's account of the reply of the Toltec king
of Colhuacan to the invading Chichimec, refusing to pay tribute, for
"they held the country from their ancestors, to whom it belonged, and
they had never obeyed or payed tribute to any foreign lord ... nor
recognized other master than the Sun and their gods." However, less
able in arms than the invaders, they fell to no great force.
The Chichimec, according to the prevailing accounts, were a congeries
of wild hunting tribes, cave-dwellers by preference, who vaguely and
imperfectly absorbed the culture that had preceded them in the Valley
of Mexico. Ixtlilxochitl has it that, under the leadership of a chief
named after the celestial dog Xolotl, they entered the Toltec domain a
few years after the fall of Tollan, peaceably possessing themselves of
an almost deserted land. They were soon followed by related tribes,
among whom the most important were the Acolhua, founders of Tezcuco;
while later came the Mexicans, or Aztec, who wandered obscurely from
place to place before they finally established the town which was to be
the capital of their empire. For several centuries, as the chronicler
pictures it, these related peoples warred and quarrelled turbulently,
owning the shadowy suzerainty of "emperors" whose power waxed or waned
with their personal force--altogether such a picture as is presented
by Mediaeval Europe after the recession of the Roman Empire before
the incursive barbarians. Gradually, however, just as in Europe, the
seed of the elder civilization took root, and the culture which the
Spaniards discovered grew and consolidated.
Its leaders were not the Aztec, but the related Acolhua, whose capital,
Tezcuco, became the Athens of an empire of which Tenochtitlan was to be
the Rome; and the great age of Tezcuco came with King Nezahualcoyotl,
less than a century before the appearance of Cortez. Cautious writers
point to the resemblances between the career and character of this
monarch as pictured by Ixtlilxochitl, and that of the Scriptural David:
both, in their youth, are hunted and persecuted by a jealous king,
and are forced into exile and outlawry; both triumphantly overthrow
their enemies and inaugurate reigns of splendour, erecting temples,
cultivating the arts, and reforming the state; both are singers and
psalmists, and prophets of a purified monotheism; both assent to the
execution of an eldest son and heir because of palace intrigue; and,
finally, both, in the hour of temptation, cause an honoured thane to
be treacherously slain in order that they may possess themselves of
a woman who has captivated their fancy. In each case, too, the queen
dishonourably won becomes the mother of a successor whose reign is
followed by a decline of power, for Nezahualpilli was the last of the
great Tezcucan kings. Certainly the parallels are striking and the
chronicler may well have been influenced by Biblical analogy in the
form which he gives his stories; but it is surely not unfair to remark
that such repetitions of event are to be expected in a world whose
possibilities are, after all, limited in number; that, for example,
a whole series of similarities can be drawn between Inca and Aztec
history (where there is no suspicion of influence), and that there are
not a few striking likenesses of the characters of Nezahualcoyotl and
Huayna Capac, to both of whom is ascribed an enlightened monotheism.
Various fragments of Nezahualcoyotl's poems--or such as bear his
name--have survived, among them a lament which has the very tone of the
Aztec prayers preserved by Sahagun, and which, indeed, breathes the
whole world-weary dolour of Nahuatlan religion.[58]
"Hearken to the lamentations of Nezahualcoyotl, communing with himself
upon the fate of Empire--spoken as an example to others!
"O king, inquiet and insecure, when thou art dead, thy vassals shall
be destroyed, scattered in dark confusion; on that day rulership will
no longer be in thy hand, but with God the Creator, All-Powerful.
"Who hath beheld the palace and court of the king of old, Tezozomoc,
how flourishing was his power and firm his tyranny, now overthrown
and destroyed--will _he_ think to escape? Mockery and deceit is this
world's gift, wherefore let all be consumed!
"Dismal it is to contemplate the prosperity enjoyed by this king,
even to his senility, like an old willow, animated by desire and by
ambition, uplifting himself above the weak and humble. Long time
did the green and the flowers offer themselves in the fields of
springtime, but at last, worm-eaten and dried, the wind of death
seized him, uprooted him, and scattered him in fragments on Earth's
soil. So, also, the olden king Cozastli passed onward, leaving neither
house nor lineage to preserve his memory.
"With such reflections, with melancholy song, I bring again the
memory of the flowery springtime gone, and of the end of Tezozomoc
who so long knew its joys. Who, harkening, shall withhold his tears?
Abundance of riches and varied pleasures, are they not like culled
flowers, passed from hand to hand, and at the end cast forth stripped
and withered?
"Sons of kings, sons of great lords, give heed and consideration
to what is made manifest in my sad and lamenting song, as I relate
how passed the flowery springtime and the end of the powerful king
Tezozomoc! Ah, who, harkening, will be hard enough to restrain his
tears--for all these varied flowers, these pleasures sweet, wither and
end with this passing life!
"Today we possess the abundance and beauty of the blossoming summer,
and harken to the melody of birds, where the butterflies sip sweet
nectar from fragrant petals. But all is like culled flowers, that
pass from hand to hand, and at the end are cast forth, stripped and
withered!"
V. AZTEC MIGRATION-MYTHS[59]
Common tradition makes of the Aztec, or Mexica, late comers into the
central valley, although they are regarded as belonging to the general
movement of tribes known as the Chichimec immigration. Apparently they
entered obscurely in the wake of kindred groups, perhaps in the middle
of the eleventh century; wandered from place to place for a period;
and finally settled on the swampy islands of Lake Tezcuco, founding
Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, which eventually became the capital of empire.
The founding of the city is variously dated--one group of references
placing it at or near 1140, and another assigning dates from 1321 to
1327, variations which may refer to an earlier and later occupation
by different or related tribal groups. The Aztec formed a league with
their kindred neighbours, the Tecpanec of Tlacopan and the Acolhua of
Tezcuco, in which their own _rôle_ was a secondary one, until finally,
under Axayacatl, Tizoc, and Ahuitzotl, the immediate predecessors
of the last Montezuma (whose name is variously rendered Moteuhçoma,
Moteczuma, Moteçuma, Motecuhzoma, etc.), they rose to undisputed
supremacy. This, however, was in war and politics, for Tezcuco,
previous to the Conquest, was still the seat of Mexican learning.
Many of the Nahuatlan peoples retained mythic reminiscences of the
period and course of their migrations; but of the narratives which
remain hardly two are in accord, although most of them mention the
"House of Seven Caves" (Chicomoztoc) as a place of dispersal. Back
of this several of the narratives go, giving details of which the
purely mythic character is evident, for the leaders named are gods
and eponymous sires, while tribes of utterly unrelated stocks are
given a common source. Thus, according to Mendieta's account,[60]
at Chicomoztoc dwelt Iztacmixcoatl ("the White Cloud-Serpent")
and his wife Ilancue ("the Old Woman"), from whom were sprung the
ancestors--"as from the sons of Noah"--of the leading nations of
Mexico, excepting that the Toltec were descended from Ixtacmixcoatl
by a second wife, Chimalmatl (or Chimalma), who is named as mother of
Quetzalcoatl, and who is represented elsewhere as the priestess or
ancestress of the Aztec in their fabled first home, Aztlan.
Sahagun[61] gives a version starting with the landing of the ancestral
Mexicans at Panotlan ("Place of Arrival by Sea"), whence he says
that they proceeded to Guatemala, and thence, guided by a priest, to
Tamoanchan, where the Amoxoaque, or wise men, left them, departing
toward the east with their ritual manuscripts and promising to return
at the end of the world. Only four of the learned ones remained with
the colonists--Oxomoco, Cipactonal, Tlaltetecuin, and Xochicauaca--and
it was they who invented the calendar and its interpretation in order
that men might have a guide for their conduct. From Tamoanchan the
colonists went to Teotihuacan, where they made sacrifices and erected
pyramids in honour of the Sun and of the Moon. Here also they elected
their first kings, and here they buried them, regarding them as gods
and saying of them, not that they had died, but that they had
just awakened from a dream called life. "Hence the ancients were in
the habit of saying that when men die, they in reality began to live,"
addressing them: "Lord (or Lady), awake! the day is coming! Already
the first light of dawn appears! The song of the yellow-plumed birds
is heard, and the many-coloured butterflies are taking wing!" Even
at Tamoanchan a dispersal of the tribes had begun: the Olmac and the
Huastec had departed toward the east, and from them had come the
invention of the intoxicating drink, pulque, and (apparently as a
result of this) the power of creating magical illusions; for they could
make a house seem to be in flames when nothing of the sort was taking
place, they could show fish in empty waters, and they could even make
it appear that they had cut their own bodies into morsels. But the
peoples associated with the Mexicans departed from Teotihuacan. First
went the Toltec, then the Otomi, who settled in Coatepec, and last the
Nahua; they traversed the deserts, seeking a home, each tribe guided
by its own gods. Worn by pains and famines, they at length came to the
Place of Seven Caves, where they celebrated their respective rites.
The Toltec were the first to go forth, finally settling at Tollan.
The people of Michoacan departed next, to be followed by the Tepanec,
Acolhua, Tlascaltec, and other Nahuatlan tribes, and last of all by the
Aztec, or Mexicans proper, who, led by their god, came to Colhuacan.
Even here they were not allowed to rest, but were compelled to resume
their wanderings, and, passing from place to place--"all designated
by their names in the ancient paintings which form the annals of this
people"--finally they came again to Colhuacan, and thence to the
neighbouring island where Tenochtitlan was founded.
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.]
Section, comprising about one third, of the "Map Tlotzin," after
Aubin, _Mémoires sur la peinture didactique (Mission scientifique au
Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale_), Plate I. The map is described
by Boturini as a "map on prepared skin representing the genealogy of
the Chichimec emperors from Tlotzin to the last king, Don Fernando
Cortès Ixtilxochitzin." Two of the six "caves," or ancestral abodes of
the Chichimec, shown on the whole map, are here represented. At the
right, marked by a bat in the ceiling, is Tzinacanoztoc, "the Cave of
the Bat"; below it, in Nahuatl, being the inscription, "Tzinacanoztoc,
here was born Ixtilxochitzin." The second cave shown is Quauhyacac,
"At the End of the Trees"; and here are shown a group of ancestral
Chichimec chieftains, whose wanderings are indicated in the figures
below. The Nahuatlan text below the figure of the cave is translated:
"All came to establish themselves there at Quauhyacoc, where they
were yet all together. Thence departed Amacui; with his wife he went
to Colhuatlican. Thence again departed Nopal; he went with his wife
to Huexotla. Thence again departed Tlotli; he went with his wife to
Oztoticpac."
Of the "ancient paintings," mentioned by Sahagun, several are
preserved,[62] portraying the journey of the Aztec from Aztlan, their
mythical fatherland, which is represented and described as located
beyond the waters, or as surrounded by waters; and the first stage
of the migration is said to have been made by boat. For this reason
numerous speculations as to its locality have placed it overseas--in
Asia or on the North-west Coast of America--although the more
conservative opinion follows Seler, who holds that it represents
simply an island shrine or temple-centre of the national god, and
hence a focus of national organization rather than of tribal origin.
According to the Codex Boturini (one of the migration picture-records),
as interpreted by Seler and others, after leaving Aztlan, represented
as an island upon which stood the shrine of Huitzilopochtli in care
of the tribal ancestor and his wife Chimalma, the Aztec landed at
Colhuacan (or Teocolhuacan, i. e. "the divine Colhuacan"), where they
united with eight related tribes, the Uexotzinca, Chalca, Xochimilca,
Cuitlauaca, Malinalca, Chichimeca, Tepaneca, and Matlatzinca, who are
said to have had their origin in a cavern of a crook-peaked mountain.
From Colhuacan, led by a priestess and four priests, they journeyed
to a place (represented in the codex by a broken tree) which Seler
identifies as Tamoanchan, or "the House of Descent," and which is also
the "House of Birth," for it is here that souls are sent from the
thirteenth heaven to be born. Thence, after a sojourn of five years,
the Aztec, perhaps urged on by some portent of which the broken tree
is a symbol, took their departure alone, leaving their kindred tribes;
and guided by Huitzilopochtli, they came to the land of melon-cacti
and mesquite, where the god gave them bow and arrows and a snare.
This land they called Mimixcoua ("Land of the Cloud-Serpent"); and
it was here that they changed their name, for the first time calling
themselves "Mexica"--an appellation which Sahagun describes as formed
from that of a chieftain, who was also an inspired priest, ruling
over the nation while they were in the land of the Chichimec, and
whose cradle, it was said, was a maguey plant, whence he was called
Mexicatl ("Mescal Hare"). Perhaps this is the incident represented in
the curious picture which shows human beings clad in skins and with
ceremonial face-paintings, recumbent upon desert plants; and no doubt
it signifies some important change in cult, such, perhaps, as the
introduction of the mescal intoxication, with its attendant visions.
It may, too, portray the institution of human sacrifice; for the
next station indicated on the chart, Cuextecatlichocayan ("Where the
Huastec Weep"), was the scene of the offering of the Huastec captives
by arrow-slaying (see p. 79, _supra_). From this place the journey led
to Coatlicamac ("In the Jaws of the Serpent"), where the people "tied
the years" and kindled the new fire; and from Coatlicamac they made
their way to Tollan, with the reaching of which the first stage of
the migration-story may be said to end. Seler regards the whole as a
myth of the world-quarters: Tamoanchan is the West, as in the Books of
Fate; Mimixcoua is the North; Cuextecatlichocayan is the East, as the
reference to the Huastec shows; and Coatlicamac is the South; finally,
Tollan is the Middle Place, being regarded, like other sacred cities,
as the navel of the world.
A second stage of the myth depicts the journey of the Aztec from
Tollan, through many stops, back to Colhuacan, until at last they came
to the site of Tenochtitlan. It is said that as the tribes halted by
the waters of Tezcuco they beheld a great eagle perched on a cactus
growing from a wave-washed rock; and while they gazed the bird ascended
to the rising sun with a serpent in his talons. This was regarded as a
divine augury, and here Tenochtitlan was founded. Such is the tradition
which gives modern Mexico its national emblem. The places of sojourn
between Tollan and Tenochtitlan, as represented in the writings, are
all with fair certainty identified with towns or sites in the Valley
of Mexico, so that here we are in the realm of history rather than of
myth. Historic also are the names (and approximate dates) of the nine
lords or emperors who ruled from the Mexican capital before the coming
of the Spaniards brought the native power to its unhappy end.
The fifth of the Aztec monarchs was the first Montezuma. Of him it is
told (the story is recorded by Fray Diego Durán)[63] that after he had
extended his realm and consolidated his rule, he decided to send an
embassy to the home of his fathers, especially since he had heard that
the mother of Huitzilopochtli was still living there. He summoned his
counsellor Tlacaelel, who brought before him an aged man learned in the
nation's history. "The place you name," said the old man, "is called
Aztlan ['White'], and near it, in the midst of the water, is a mountain
called Culhuacan ['Crooked Hill']. In its caverns our fathers dwelt
for many years, much at their ease, and they were known as Mexitin
and Azteca. They had quantities of duck, heron, cormorants, and other
waterfowl, while birds of red and of yellow plumage diverted them
with song. They had fine large fish; handsome trees lined the shores;
and the streams flowed through meadows under the cypress and alder.
In canoes they fared upon the waters, and they had floating gardens
bearing maize, chile, tomatoes, beans, and all the vegetables which
we now eat and which we have brought thence. But after they left this
island and set foot on land, all this was changed: the herbs pricked
them, the stones wounded, and the fields were full of thistle and of
thorn. Snakes and venomous vermin swarmed everywhere, while all about
were lions and tigers and other dangerous and hurtful beasts. So is
it written in my books." Then the king dispatched his messengers
with gifts for the mother of Huitzilopochtli. They came first to
Coatepec, near Tollan, and there called upon their demons (for they
were magicians) to guide them; and thus they reached Culhuacan, the
mountain in the sea, where they beheld the fisherfolk and the floating
gardens. The people of the land, finding that the foreigners spoke
their tongue, asked what god they worshipped, and when told that it was
Huitzilopochtli and that they were come with a present for Coatlicue,
his mother, if she yet lived, they conducted the strangers to the
steward of the god's mother. When they had delivered their message,
stating their mission from the King and his counsellor, the steward
answered: "Who is this Montezuma and who is Tlacaelel? Those who went
from here bore no such names; they were called Teçacatetl, Acacitli,
Oçelopan, Ahatl, Xomimitl, Auexotl, Uicton, Tenoch, chieftains of the
tribes, and with them were the four guardians of Huitzilopochtli." The
messengers answered: "Sir, we own that we do not know these lords,
nor have we seen them, for all are long dead." "Who, then, killed
them? We who are left here are all yet living. Who, then, are they
who live to-day?" The messengers told of the old man who retained the
record of the journey, and they asked to be taken before the mother
of the god to discharge their duty. The old man, who was the steward
of Coatlicue, led them forward; but the mountain, as they ascended,
was like a pile of loose sand, in which they sank. "What makes you so
heavy?" asked the guide, who moved lightly on the surface; and they
answered, "We eat meat and drink cocoa." "It is this meat and drink,"
said the elder, "that prevent you from reaching the place where your
fathers dwelt; it is this that has brought death among you. We know
naught of these, naught of the luxury that drags you down; with us all
is simple and meagre." Thereupon he took them up, and swift as wind
brought them into the presence of Coatlicue. The goddess was foul and
frightful to behold, and like one near death, for she was in mourning
for her son's departure; but when she heard the message and beheld the
rich gifts, she sent word to her son, reminding him of the prophecy
that he had made at the time of his going forth: how he should lead
the seven tribes into the lands they were to possess, making war and
reducing cities and nations to his service; and how at last he should
be overthrown, even as he had overthrown others, and his weapons cast
to earth. "Then, O mother mine, my time will be accomplished, and I
will return fleeing to thy lap, but until then I shall know naught save
pain. Therefore give me two pairs of sandals, one for going forth and
one for returning, and four pairs of sandals, two pair for going forth
and two for returning." "When he thinks on these words," continued
the goddess, "and remembers that his mother yearns after him, bring
to him this mantle of nequen and this breechband." With these gifts
she dismissed the messengers; and as they descended, the steward of
Coatlicue explained how the people of Aztlan kept their youth, for when
they grew old, they climbed the mountain, and the climbing renewed
their years. So the messengers returned, by the way they had come, to
King Montezuma.
VI. SURVIVING PAGANISM
In 1502 Montezuma Xocoyotzin ("Montezuma the Young") was elected
Emperor of Mexico, assuming a pomp and pride unknown to his
predecessors. Five years later, in 1507, the Aztec "tied the years"
and for the last time kindled the new fire on the breast of a noble
captive. Ominous portents began to appear with the new cycle, and the
chronicles abounded with imaginations of disaster.[64] The temple
turret of the war-god was burned; another shrine was destroyed by fire
from heaven, thunderlessly fallen in the midst of rain; a tree-headed
comet was seen; Lake Tezcuco overflowed its banks for no cause; a rock
which the King had ordered made into a sacrificial altar refused to be
moved, saying to the workmen that the Lord of Creation would not suffer
it; twins and monsters were born, and there were nightly cries, as of
women in travail--
"Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New-hatched to the woeful time."
Fishermen caught a strange bird with a crystal in its head, and in the
crystal, as in a mirror, Montezuma beheld unheard-of warriors,
armed and slaying. Most terrible of all, a huge pyramid of fire
appeared in the east, night after night, coruscating with points of
brilliance. In his terror Montezuma summoned old Nezahualpilli of
Tezcuco, noted as an astrologer, to interpret the sign; and this King,
whose star was in the decline, took perhaps a grim satisfaction in
reading from the portents the early overthrow of the empire. Montezuma,
it is said, put the interpretation to test, challenging Nezahualpilli
to the divinatory game of _tlachtli_; but just on the point of winning,
the monarch lost and returned discomfited. Another tale, doubtless
apocryphal, tells how Papantzin, sister of Montezuma, died and was
buried; shortly afterward she was found sitting by a fountain in the
palace garden, and when the lords were assembled in her presence,
she told how a winged youth had taken her to the banks of a river,
beside which she saw the bones of dead men and heard their groans,
while upon the waters were strange craft, manned by fair and bearded
warriors coming to possess the kingdom. Certain it is, at least, that
the hearts of all men regarded the return of Quetzalcoatl as near--the
oppressed looking with hope, the powerful with dread, to the coming of
the god--and the vestments of the deity were among the first gifts with
which the unhappy Mexican sought to win the favour of Cortez.
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.]
Interior of chamber, Mitla, showing type of mural decoration peculiar
to this region. After photograph in the Peabody Museum.
Nevertheless the memory of the King did not fade from native
imagination with the fall of his throne. Stories of the greatness, the
pride and the destruction of Montezuma spread; they became confused
with older legends; and finally the Mexican monarch himself became the
subject of myth. Far to the north the Papago[65] still show the cave
of Montezuma, whom they have identified with Sihu, the elder brother
of Coyote; and they tell how Montezuma, coming forth from a cave dug
by the Creator, led the Indian nations thence. At first all went
happily, and men and beasts conversed with one another until a flood
ended this age of felicity, only Montezuma and his brother, Coyote,
escaping in arks which they made for themselves. When the waters had
subsided, they aided in the repeopling of the world, and to Montezuma
was assigned the lordship of the new race, but, being swollen with
pride and arrogance by his high dignity, he failed to rule justly. The
Great Spirit, to punish him, removed the sun to a remote part of the
heavens; whereupon Montezuma set about building a house which should
reach the skies, and whose apartments he lined with jewels and precious
metals. This the Great Spirit destroyed with his thunder; but Montezuma
was still rebellious, whereupon as his supreme punishment, the Great
Spirit sent an insect to summon the Spaniards from the East for his
destruction.
How far the political influence of the Aztec Empire extended is not
clearly certain, but there are numerous indications that its cultural
relations were very wide. There are rites and myths of the Pueblo
Indians, Hopi and Zuñi, whose resemblance to the Mexican seems surely
to imply a connexion not too remote; while far to the south, among the
Nahua of Lake Nicaragua, the creator pair and ruling gods, Tamagostad
and Çipattoval, are identical with the Mexican generative couple,
Oxomoco and Cipactonal.[66]
In outlying districts today the less-touched Nahuatlan tribes preserve
their essential paganism, and Lumholtz's and Preuss's accounts[67] of
the pantheons of the Cora and Huichol Indians give us a living image of
what must have been the ancestral religion of the Nahuatlan tribes, at
least in the crude days of their wanderings. Father Sun, say the Cora,
is fierce in the summer-time, slaying men and animals; but Chuvalete,
the Morning Star, keeps watch over him to prevent him from harming
the people. Morning Star is cool and dislikes heat, and once he shot
the Sun, causing him to fall to earth; but an old man restored him to
the heavens, giving him a new start, Chuvalete is the first friend
of the Cora among the gods, and it is to him that they address their
prayers as they go to the spring to bathe in the early dawn; they call
him, "Elder Brother," just as the Earth is "Our Mother" and the Sun
"Our Father." The Water Serpent of the West, the Moon, the Winds, the
Rain, the Lightning,--all these are familiar deities. Preuss[68] calls
attention to the striking emphasis which the Cora place on the power
of thought: the leaders of the ceremonies are called "thinkers" and
in their prayers and rites the conception of a magical preservative
and creative power in thought frequently recurs, not only as a power
of priests, who have obtained it through purification, but as the
essential power of the gods. Thus, of the sun about to rise:
"Our Father in Heaven thinks upon his Earth, our Father the Shining One.
There he is, on the other side of the World.
He thinks with his Thought, our Father, the Shining One.
He remembers, too, what he is, our Father, the Shining One."
And again it is the sacred words handed down in ritual through which
men acquire that mystical participation in the divine power that
preserves them in life:
"Here are present his Words, which he has given to us, his children,
Wherewith we live and continue in the World.
Indeed, all his Words are here present, which he has uttered and left unto us.
Here leaves he unto his children his Thought."
The Huichol have a more populous pantheon. Tatevali ("Grandfather
Fire") is the deity of life and health, and also of shamans and
prophesying. Great-grandfather Deer-Tail is likewise a fire-god and a
singing shaman; he is the son of Grandfather Fire and yet his elder;
for, it is said, Great-grandfather Deer-Tail is the spark produced
in striking flint, while Grandfather Fire is the flame fed by wood.
Father Sun is another important deity who was created, they say, when
the Corn Mother (or the Eagle Mother, as some have it) threw her young
son, armed with bow and arrows, into an oven, whence he emerged as
the divinity. Setting Sun is the assistant of Father Sun; and with
the Moon, who is a Grandmother, he helps to keep Tokakami, the black
and blood-smeared god of death, from leaving his underworld abode to
devour the Indians. Tamats, the Elder Brother, is divinity of wind and
air and messenger of the gods;[69] the cock belongs to him, because it
follows the course of the Sun and always knows where the Sun is; and
he is also the deity who conquered the underworld people and put the
world into shape. He appears in different forms (like Tezcatlipoca),
now a wolf, now a deer, a pine-tree, a whirlwind; and it is he who
taught the ancients "all they had to do in order to comply with what
the gods wanted at the five points of the world." There are goddesses,
too. Takotsi Nakawe ("Grandmother Growth") is the Earth goddess who
gives long life and is the mother of the armadillo, the peccary, and
the bear; to her belong maize, and squash, and beans, and sheep; she
is water, likewise, and is a Rain-Serpent in the east. Rain-Serpent
goddesses live in each of the Quarters--she of the east is red, and
the flowers of spring are her skirt; she of the west is white, like a
white cloud; blue is the Rain-Serpent goddess of the south, and to her
belong seeds and singing shamans; while the Rain-Serpent goddess of the
north, whose name means "Rain and Fog hanging in the Trees and Grass,"
is spotted. Another goddess is Young Mother Eagle, the Sun's mother,
and it is she who holds the world in her talons and guards everything;
the stars are her dress. With Grandmother Growth beneath, Young Mother
Eagle above, and the four Rain-Serpent goddesses, the six cardinal
points of the world are defined. It will be observed, too, that the
goddesses are deities of the feminine element, earth and water; while
the gods are divinities of the masculine elements, fire and air.
Beliefs such as these inevitably suggest those of the older Mexico, and
similarly in many of the rites of these Indians there are analogies
to Aztec cult. Perhaps most striking of all is the elaborate and
partly mystical adoration of the hikuli, or peyote (cacti of the genus
_Lophophora_), to which are ascribed mantic power and the induction of
ecstacy; and in which, no doubt, we see the marvellous plant which the
Aztec encountered in their migration. The cult extends to tribes remote
in the north and is not without a touch of welcome poetry, as in the
Tarahumare song given by Lumholtz[70]--
"Beautiful lily, in bloom this morning, guard me!
Drive away sorcery! Make me grow old!
Let me reach the age at which I have to take up a walking-stick!
I thank thee for exhaling thy fragrance, there where thou art standing!"