METZTLI = “THE MOON,” OR TECCIZTECATL = “HE FROM THE SEA-SNAIL”

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—In this codex he is shown as a female, old, with the gobber tooth or lip contraction indicative of extreme age. He is painted yellow, the colour of women. The white of the clothing expresses the relatively dull hue of the luminary when compared with the sun.

Codex Vaticanus B.—Here he is old and white-haired, and is pictured as a priest with the marine snail’s shell on his brow. The body-colour is blue, as is the face, on sheet 30, but on sheet 88, half-blue, half-red, as in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer [[309]]picture of Mixcoatl. On sheet 30 he is figured with a long beard and wears Xochipilli’s ornaments.

Aubin Tonalamatl.—In this place he is represented by Tezcatlipocâ.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 24: Here he is pictured as an old god with a long beard. The body-colour is blue, and the face half-blue, half-red, like that of Xolotl in the same MS. He wears the sea-snail shell on his fillet.

MYTHS

The principal myths relating to the origin of the Moon-god have already been given in the chapter on Cosmogony.

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A states that:

“They believed that the moon presided over human generation, and accordingly they always put it by the side of the sun. They placed on its head a sea-snail, to denote that in the same way as this marine animal creeps from its integument or shell, so man comes from his mother’s womb.”

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says:

“Meztli was otherwise named Tectziztecatl; because in the same way that a snail creeps from its shell, so man proceeds from his mother’s womb. They placed the moon opposite to the sun, because its course continually crosses his; and they believed it to be the cause of human generation.”

NATURE AND STATUS

Tecciztecatl is “the Man in the Moon,” the spirit who dwells in or animates the luminary of night. He is frequently depicted as an old man or priest, with staff in hand, and is the wizard, or naualli, who lurks within the moon-cave, or house, for so the moon seems to have appeared to the Mexicans. It seems also to have been regarded or symbolized as a snail-shell, and it is probable that the curved shape of it in its earliest phase, no less than its gradual growth, brought about this conception. This in turn created the train of thought which resulted in its being regarded as the symbol of conception and birth—its growth and gradual rotundity, as [[310]]well as its symbolic connection with the snail assisting the idea. As the wizard of night concealed within his cavern, Tecciztecatl was identified with Tezcatlipocâ, the sorcerer par excellence, the magician who held sway over the dreaded hours of darkness. The moon had also a connection with Chalchihuitlicue and the octli-gods, which is dealt with in the sections relating to those deities.

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