TZOALLI.
An examination of the Spanish writers who most carefully transmitted their observations upon the religious ceremonies of the Aztecs and other nations in Mexico and South America brings out two most interesting features in this connection. The first is that there were commemorative feasts of prehistoric foods, and the second that one or more of these foods has played an important part in the religion of tribes farther north. The first of these foods is the "tzoalli," which was the same as "bledos," which latter would seem beyond question to have been hoddentin or yiauhtli. Brasseur de Bourbourg's definition simply states that the tzoalli was a compound of leguminous grains peculiar to Mexico and eaten in different ways: "Le Tzohualli était un composé de graines légumineuses particulières au Mexique, qu'on mangeait de diverses manières."[354]
In the month called Tepeilhuitl the Aztecs made snakes of twigs and covered them with dough of bledos (a kind of grain or hay seed). Upon these they placed figures, representing mountains, but shaped like young children.[355] This month was the thirteenth on the Mexican calendar, which began on our February 1. This would put it October 1, or thereabout.
Squier cites Torquemada's description of the sacrifices called Ecatotontin, offered to the mountains by the Mexicans. In these they made figures of serpents and children and covered them with "dough," named by them tzoalli, composed of the seeds of bledos.[356]
A dramatic representation strongly resembling those described in the two preceding paragraphs was noted among the Tusayan of Arizona by Mr. Taylor, a missionary, in 1881, and has been mentioned at length in The Snake Dance of the Moquis. Clavigero relates that the Mexican priests "all eat a certain kind of gruel which they call Etzalli."[357]
Torquemada relates that the Mexicans once each year made an idol or statue of Huitzlipotchli of many grains and the seeds of bledos and other vegetables which they kneaded with the blood of boys who were sacrificed for the purpose. "Juntaban muchos granos y semilla de Bledos, y otras legumbres, y molianlas con mucha devocion, y recato, y de ellas amasaban, y formaban la dicha Estatua, del tamaño y estatura de un Hombre. El licor, con que se resolbian y desleian aquellas harinas era sangre de Niños, que para este fin se sacrificaban."[358]
It is remarkable the word "maiz" does not occur in this paragraph. Huitzlipotchli being the God of War, it was natural that the ritual devoted to his service should conserve some, if not all, of the foods, grains, and seeds used by the Mexicans when on the warpath in the earliest days of their history; and that this food should be made into a dough with the blood of children sacrificed as a preliminary to success is also perfectly in accordance with all that we know of the mode of reasoning of this and other primitive peoples. Torquemada goes on to say that this statue was carried in solemn procession to the temple and idol of Huitzlipotchli and there adorned with precious jewels (chalchihuitl), embedded in the soft mass. Afterward it was carried to the temple of the god Paynalton, preceded by a priest carrying a snake in the manner that the priests in Spain carried the cross in the processions of the church. "Con una Culebra mui grande, y gruesa en las manos, tortuosa, y con muchas bueltas, que iba delante, levantada en alto, á manera de Cruz, en nuestras Procesiones."[359] This dough idol, he says, was afterwards broken into "migajas" (crumbs) and distributed among the males only, boys as well as men, and by them eaten after the manner of communion; "este era su manera de comunion."[360] Herrera, speaking of this same idol of Vitzliputzli, as he calls him, says it was made by the young women of the temple, of the flour of bledos and of toasted maize, with honey, and that the eyes were of green, white, or blue beads, and the teeth of grains of corn. After the feast was over, the idol was broken up and distributed to the faithful, "á manera de comunion." "Las Doncellas recogidas en el templo, dos Dias antes de la Fiesta, amasaban harina de Bledos, i de Maiz tostado, con miel, y de la masa hacian un Idolo grande, con los ojos de cuentas grandes, verdes, açules, ò blancas; i por dientes granos de maiz."[361]
H. H. Bancroft speaks of the festival in honor of Huitzilopochtli, "the festival of the wafer or cake." He says: "They made a cake of the meal of bledos, which is called tzoalli," which was afterward divided in a sort of communion.[362] Diego Duran remarks that at this feast the chief priest carried an idol of dough called "tzoally," which is made of the seeds of bledos and corn made into a mass with honey.[363] "Un ydolo de masa, de una masa que llaman tzoally, la cual se hace de semilla de bledos y maiz amasado con miel." This shows that "bledos" and "maiz" were different things.[364] A few lines farther on Duran tells us that this cake, or bread, was made by the nuns of the temple, "las mozas del recogimiento de este templo," and that they ground up a great quantity of the seed of bledos, which they call huauhtly, together with toasted maize. "Molian mucha cantidad de semilla de bledos que ellos llaman huauhtly juntamente con maiz tostado."[365] He then shows that the "honey" (miel) spoken of by the other writers was the thick juice of the maguey. "Despues de molido, amasabanlo con miel negra de los magueis."
Acosta describes a Mexican feast, held in our month of May, in which appeared an idol called Huitzlipotchli, made of "mays rosty," "semence de blettes," and "amassoient avec du miel."[366]
In the above citations it will be seen that huauhtly or yuauhtli and tzoally were one and the same. We also find some of the earliest if not the very earliest references to the American popped corn.
That the Mexicans should have had such festivals or feasts in honor of their god of battles is no more extraordinary than that in our own country all military reunions make it a point to revert to the "hard tack" issued during the campaigns in Virginia and Tennessee. Many other references to the constant use as a food, or at least as a sacrificial food, of the bledos might be supplied if needed. Thus Diego Duran devotes the twelfth chapter of his third book to an obscure account of a festival among the Tepanecs, in which appeared animal gods made of "masa de semilla de bledos," which were afterwards broken and eaten.
Torquemada speaks of such idols employed in the worship of snakes and mountains.[367] In still another place this authority tells us that similar figures were made and eaten by bride and groom at the Aztec marriage ceremony.[368]
The ceremonial manner in which these seeds were ground recalls the fact that the Zuñi regard the stones used for grinding kunque as sacred and will not employ them for any other purpose.
Idols made of dough much after the fashion of the Aztecs are to be found among the Mongols. Meignan speaks of seeing "an idol, quite open to the sky and to the desert, representing the deity of travelers. It was made of compressed bread, covered over with some bituminous substance, and perched on a horse of the same material, and held in its hand a lance in Don Quixote attitude. Its horrible features were surmounted with a shaggy tuft of natural hair. A great number of offerings of all kinds were scattered on the ground all around. Five or six images, formed also of bread, were bending in an attitude of prayer before the deity."[369]
Dr. Edwin James, the editor of Tanner's Narrative,[370] cites the "Calica Puran" to show that medicinal images are employed by the people of the East Indies when revenge is sought upon an enemy; "water must be sprinkled on the meal or earthen victim which represents the sacrificer's enemy."
In those parts of India where human sacrifice had been abolished, a substitutive ceremony was practiced "by forming a human figure of flour-paste, or clay, which they carry into the temples, and there cut off its head or mutilate it, in various ways, in presence of the idols."[371]
Gomara describes the festival in honor of the Mexican God of Fire, called "Xocothuecl," when an idol was used made of every kind of seed and was then enwrapped in sacred blankets to keep it from breaking. "Hacian aquella noche un ídolo de toda suerte de semillas, envolvíanlo en mantas benditas, y liábanlo, porque no se deshiciese."[372]
These blessed blankets are also to be seen at the Zuñi feast of the Little God of Fire, which occurs in the month of December. It is a curious thing that the blessed blankets of the Zuñi are decorated with the butterfly, which appeared upon the royal robes of Montezuma.
What other seeds were used in the fabrication of these idols is not very essential to our purpose, but it may be pointed out that one of them was the seed of the "agenjo," which was the "chenopodium" or "artemisia," known to us as the "sagebrush."
Of the Mexicans we learn from a trustworthy author: "Tambien usaban alguna manera de comunion ó recepcion del sacramento, y es que hacian unos idolitos chiquitos de semilla de bledos ó cenizos, ó de otras yerbas, y ellos mismos se los recibian, como cuerpo ó memoria de sus dioses."[373]
Mendieta wrote his Historia Eclesiástica Indiana in 1596, "al tiempo que esto escribo (que es por Abril del año de noventa y seis)"[374] and again,[375] "al tiempo que yo esto escribo."
The Mexicans, in the month of November, had a festival in honor of Tezcatlipuca. "Hacian unos bollos de masa de maíz y semejante de agenjos, aunque son de otra suerte que los de acá, y echábanlos á cocer en ollas con agua sola. Entre tanto que hervian y se cocian los bollos, tañian los muchachos un atabal ... y después comíanselos con gran devocion."[376]
Gomara's statement, that while these cakes of maize and wormwood seed were cooking the young men were beating on drums, would find its parallel in any account that might be written of the behavior of the Zuñi, while preparing for their sacred feasts. The squaws grind the meal to be used on these occasions to the accompaniment of singing by the medicine-men and much drumming by a band of assistants selected from among the young men and boys.
Mr. Francis La Flèche, a nearly full-blood Omaha Indian, read before the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C., in 1888, a paper descriptive of the funeral customs of his people, in which he related that when an Indian was supposed to be threatened with death the medicine-men would go in a lodge sweat-bath with him and sing, and at the same time "pronouncing certain incantations and sprinkling the body of the client with the powder of the artemisia, supposed to be the food of the ghosts."[377]
To say that a certain powder is the food of the ghosts of a tribe is to say indirectly that the same powder was once the food of the tribe's ancestors.
The Peruvians seem to have made use of the same kind of sacrificial cakes kneaded with the blood of the human victim. We are told that in the month of January no strangers were allowed to enter the city of Cuzco, and that there was then a distribution of corn cakes made with the blood of the victim, which were to be eaten as a mark of alliance with the Inca. "Les daban unos Bollos de Maíz, con sangre de el sacrificio, que comian, en señal de confederacion con el Inga."[378]
Balboa says that the Peruvians had a festival intended to signalize the arrival of their young men at manhood, in which occurred a sort of communion consisting of bread kneaded by the young virgins of the sun with the blood of victims. This same kind of communion was also noted at another festival occurring in our month of September of each year. ("Un festin composé de pain pétri par les jeunes vierges du Soleil avec le sang des victimes."[379]) There were other ceremonial usages among the Aztecs, in which the tule rush itself, "espadaña," was employed, as at childbirth, marriage, the festivals in honor of Tlaloc, and in the rough games played by boys. It is possible that from being a prehistoric food the pollen of the tule, or the plant which furnished it, became associated with the idea of sustenance, fertility, reproduction, and therefore very properly formed part of the ritual necessary in weddings or connected with the earliest hours of a child's life, much as rice has been used so freely in other parts of the world.[380]
Among the Aztecs the newly born babe was laid upon fresh green tule rushes, with great ceremony, while its name was given to it.[380]
Gomara says that the mats used in the marriage ceremonies of the Aztecs were made of tules. "Esteras verdes de espadañas."[381]
"They both sat down upon a new and curiously wrought mat, which was spread in the middle of the chamber close to the fire." The marriage bed was made "of mats of rushes, covered with small sheets, with certain feathers, and a gem of chalchihuitl in the middle of them."[382]
The third festival of Tlaloc was celebrated in the sixth month, which would about correspond to our 6th of June.[383] But there was another festival in honor of the Tlaloc, which seems very hard to understand. A full description is given by Bancroft.[384] To celebrate this it was incumbent upon the priests to cut and carry to the temples bundles of the tule, which were woven into a sacred mat, after which there was a ceremonial procession to a tule swamp in which all bathed.
The Aztecs, like the Apache, had myths showing that they sprang originally from a reed swamp. There was an Aztec god, Napatecutli, who was the god of the tule and of the mat-makers.[385] This rush was also strewn as part of several of their religious ceremonies.
Fosbrooke[386] has this to say about certain ceremonies in connection with the churches in Europe: "At certain seasons the Choir was strewed with hay, at others with sand. On Easter sabbath with ivy-leaves; at other times with rushes." He shows that hay was used at Christmas and the vigil of All Saints, at Pentecost, Athelwold's Day, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and Ascension, etc.
The Mexican populace played a game closely resembling our "blind man's buff" in their seventeenth month, which was called Tititl and corresponded to the winter solstice. In this game, called "nechichiquavilo," men and boys ran through the streets hitting every one whom they met with small bags or nets ("taleguillas ó redecillas") filled with tule powder or fine paper ("llenas de flor de las espadañas ó de algunos papeles rotos").[387]
The same thing is narrated by other early Spanish writers upon Mexico.
In the myths of Guatemala it is related that there were several distinct generations of men. The first were made of wood, without heart or brains, with worm-eaten feet and hands. The second generation was an improvement upon this, and the women are represented as made of tule. "Las mugeres fueron hechas de corazon de espadaña."[388]
Picart, enumerating the tree gods of the Romans, says that they had deified "les Roseaux pour les Rivieres."[389]