PATECATL = “HE FROM THE LAND OF THE MEDICINES”

THE OCTLI GODS.

TEPOXTECATL.

(From Codex Magliabecchiano, 1 fol., sheet 37.)

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 57: He sits opposite Tlazolteotl and wears a crescent-shaped Huaxtec nasal ornament, and on his breast a remarkable comma-shaped curved ornament which is, perhaps, a piece of a large spiral snail’s shell, and which is peculiar to Patecatl and Tlazolteotl. He has the half-black, half-light face of the octli-gods. He wears Quetzalcoatl’s fan-like nape adornment, the fillet of unspun cotton distinctive of Tlazolteotl, and an ear-plug of the same material. He holds a stone hatchet, which is the symbol and weapon of the octli-gods, painted blue to indicate nephrite or some such stone. Sheet 13: He wears a fillet which affects the form of the Mexican royal crown, consisting of white fur with an ape’s head set on the frontal side, evidently a barbaric ornament peculiar to the district whence he came.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 35: Here he wears a wedge-shaped Huaxtec cap, painted blue and red, and a disk-shaped shell on his breast. His earring is formed of a trapeze-and-ray motif, like those on the stone head of Coyolxauhqui. The ends of his loin-cloth are rounded like Quetzalcoatl’s. Sheet 90: He wears a breast-ornament consisting of a black, leaf-shaped, obsidian knife. [[293]]

Aubin Tonalamatl.—He holds in his left hand some spikes of the agave-leaf, and in his right hand Quetzalcoatl’s throwing-stick, which is involuted snail-fashion at the end and painted with a stellar design. An eagle and jaguar stand before him holding paper flags, these symbols of the warrior signifying the courage-giving nature of octli drink. They are in sacrificial array, with the sacrificial cord round their necks and the sacrificial flag in their claws. The half-night and half-day symbol is above them, signifying the time of the octli orgies.

Codex Magliabecchiano.—Instead of the stone axe he holds in his hand Quetzalcoatl’s throwing-stick, and also wears his shell breastplate.

THE OCTLI-GODS.

Patecatl with Octli Emblems. (From Codex Borbonicus, sheet 11.)

MYTHS

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says: “Patecatl was the husband of Mayaguil (Mayauel), the woman with four hundred breasts, who was metamorphosed into the maguei plant or vine, and was properly the root which they put into the water or wine which distils from the maguei in order to make it ferment. And the unhappy man to whose industry the art of making wine by causing fermentation by means of this root was due, was afterwards worshipped as a god.”

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis states that: “Patecatle was the god of these thirteen days, and of a kind of root which they put into wine (the opactli or peyote); since without this root no quantity of wine, no matter how much they drank, would produce intoxication. Patecatle taught them the art of making wine, for wine was made according to his instructions; and as men when under the influence of wine are valiant, so they supposed that those who were born during this period would be courageous. They considered these thirteen days all as fortunate, for Patecatle, the god of wine, the husband of Mayaquel, who was otherwise called Cipaquetona, he who was saved from the deluge, ruled over them. They placed the eagle and the lion near him as a sign that their sons would be valiant men.” [[294]]

NATURE AND STATUS

Patecatl was originally a Huaxtec god. Tradition said that the tribal ancestor of this people was the first drunkard. In the Sahagun MS. Patecatl is called “the finder of the stalks and roots of which octli is made,” that is those roots which were added to the octli to enhance its intoxicating or narcotic strength. Motolinia states that those roots were called oc-patli or octli-medicine, and the interpreter of the Codex Magliabecchiano confirms the passage, as do the interpreters of the Codex Vaticanus A and the Codex Telleriano-Remensis.

I fail to find corroboration elsewhere of the interpreter’s statement that Patecatl was “saved from the deluge.” He seems to me to bear a general resemblance to Apollo, as recently explained by Dr. Rendel Harris,[10] that is, he seems to have been named in accordance with some conception of him in which he was thought of as coming from a “Land of Medicines” (in his case the Huaxtec country, which was also the Tlillan Tlapallan, the “Land of Writing” or of Civilization). The herbal conception of many Greek and other deities—that is, their actual development from plants, the evolution of the god from the medicinal herb—is now well authenticated, as can be seen from a perusal of Dr. Harris’s remarkable work. Nor is the proven development of many deities from mineral substances any less remarkable.

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MAYAUEL = “SHE OF THE MAGUEY-PLANT”

[[295]]

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 12: She is painted yellow, the women’s colour, and is seen issuing from an agave-plant. In sheet 16 she has the general aspect of Tlazolteotl, and her hair is bound up with a band of unspun cotton, a plug of which also hangs from her ear. About the mouth she is painted with black rubber, and as a nasal ornament wears the golden crescent. Her face is white, and her tippet and skirt are painted in the semblance of water and both garments have a fringe of snail-shells. She suckles a fish. Sheet 68: In this place she is represented as ruler of the eighth week. She has a two-coloured face-painting, the upper half yellow, and the lower green or blue. The octli colour is represented in her garments, which are white. In the pictures of the Borgia group generally she is shown wearing the blue indented nose-plate which is assigned to Xochiquetzal. In Codex Borgia generally she wears as a back-device a quemitl after the style of Tlaloc, but coloured white and blue or green. On her flame-coloured locks she sometimes wears a jewelled chain with a conventional bird’s head decorating the front of it, while the feather-tuft on her head resembles that worn by the Sun-god in Codex Borgia (sheet 15), and is intended to symbolize the fiery nature of the octli liquor.

Aubin Tonalamatl.—Sheet 8: She is painted the colour of the Maize-goddess and her maidens—red. As a headdress she wears a bandage with a neck-loop formed and coloured like that of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue, and connected with a high crown. She bears a copal incense bag.

Codex Vaticanus A.—She is shown with the upper half of her face yellow and the lower blue, thus depicting the typical two-coloured face-painting of the octli-gods. On her head she wears the characteristic octli-god’s headdress, also worn by Tlaloc, and holds a drinking-vessel brimming with octli.

Codex Borbonicus.—Her face is blue with a few oblique lines after the style of the warrior’s face-paint. She wears as a headdress a bandage of unspun cotton (usually the characteristic of Tlazolteotl), spindles in her hair, a quail’s wing and long plumes of a yellow colour. In her hand she [[296]]bears a bunch of octli-wort, a root which, if added to the agave liquor, makes its powers of intoxication more potent.

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheets 31 and 89: She is represented wearing the headdress typical of Tlaloc and of the octli-gods—a bandage coloured white and blue, with knots to the right and left, which leaves these tips or tippets sticking out. Two large white and blue rosettes with similarly coloured tassels depend by strings from the right and left of this bandage.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 28: Clothed in a yellow-striped tippet like that of Chalchihuitlicue, with a border painted in the colours of the jewel, she lies in her agave-plant. She is crowned with a wreath of flowers and wears a blue skirt.

Codex Laud.—Sheet 9: The agave-plant rises from a turtle resting upon a dragon. Adjacent to this lie a copper hatchet and a throwing-weapon, while in her hand she holds an octli bowl ornamented with gems and flowers.

Secondary Aspects.—She is very often suggested by the octli jug, which in the Borgia group is represented as a big two-handed vessel standing on serpentine coils, while to it are attached votive papers of the type frequently offered to the Tlaloquê, and bannerets are placed on the sides, on which the V-shaped point is depicted. The night-and-day symbol surmounts the whole. Though she is spoken of as having many breasts, the goddess is very rarely depicted in this manner.

MYTHS

The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says of her:

“They feign that Mayaguil was a woman with four hundred breasts, and that the gods on account of her fruitfulness changed her into the maguei, from which they make wine.”

He also speaks of her as the mother of Cinteotl, remarking that all the gods had their origin from the vine which bears the grape (the maguey-plant).

The third interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis calls [[297]]her “Mayaquel, who was otherwise called Cipaquetona” (Cipactonal), and wife of Patecatl.

NATURE AND STATUS

Mayauel, as her name implies, is primarily a deity of the maguey-plant. But evidence is not wanting that she also partakes of the nature of the Earth-goddess, as her occasional appearance in the insignia of Tlazolteotl and her wearing of the colours of the Maize-goddess would seem to show. As the wife of Patecatl, the god “from the land of medicines,” she bears the ropes which symbolize the octli-wort, the plant which gave a narcotic quality to the octli drink, and which was thought of as strangling or choking the drunkard. Her bounteousness of fertility was symbolized by the possession of four hundred breasts, and in this she resembles the old mother-goddess of Asia Minor. She has also affinities with Xochiquetzal and Cipactonal.

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