TEPEYOLLOTL = “HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS”
- Area of Worship: Tierras Calientes.
- Relationship: One of the Tzitzimimê.
- Symbols:
- A cave (see Codex Borgia, sheet 2).
- A marine shell (Codex Borbonicus). See also Seler, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, vol. i, p. 606, for glyph in Codex Bologna (Cospi).
- Calendar Place: Eighth of the lords of the night; ruler of the third day, and of the third week, ce mazatl.
- Compass Direction: South.
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
In Codices Fejérváry-Mayer and Vaticanus B the face-paint of this god is red, and in the latter MS. has the alternate red and yellow cross-bars of the red Tezcatlipocâ. In Codex Borgia the body is painted black, but in this MS., as well as in the Aubin tonalamatl, the upper part of the face resembles that of Quetzalcoatl in its decoration, the profile being of a [[333]]light colour, while the temporal region is painted differently, these colours in the Aubin tonalamatl being separated by a black line. But whereas the temporal colouring in the Vienna MS. is green, in Codex Borgia it shows the alternate black and yellow of Tezcatlipocâ’s face-paint. In Codex Borgia, sheet 14, a beard is worn and a plug is in the nostrils. The region of the mouth has the painting of a jaguar’s skin. The hair is puffed up in two pads, symbolic, perhaps, of the mountainous region with which the god is connected. In Codex Telleriano-Remensis he wears the broad necktie of the rain-gods, only painted in green and not in blue, and in Codex Borgia shows Tlaloc’s colours in the loin-cloth, fillet, and neck-ornament. In this MS., too, he is represented as blowing the conch-shell, and here, as well as in Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, he stands before a building which has the cone-shaped, high-pitched straw roof of the houses in the tierras calientes, crowned with a jagged motif. As ruler of the third day-sign and third week he is represented as a jaguar pure and simple in the Aubin tonalamatl, Telleriano-Remensis and Borbonicus codices, which is merely a disguise for the personality of Tezcatlipocâ, as is shown by the face of that god looking out from the jaguar’s head in Telleriano-Remensis.
In Codex Borbonicus he is more unmistakably represented as Tezcatlipocâ, for the hands and feet projecting from underneath the jaguar skin are striped like those of that god, and one of the feet wears Tezcatlipocâ’s sandal, the itzcoatl (or obsidian snake), whilst the other is torn off and replaced by his smoking mirror. The jaguar of Codex Borbonicus has other portions of the insignia of Tezcatlipocâ about him, such as the aztaxelli, or feather head-ornament, and the anauatl, or white mussel-shell ring. In the Codex Borbonicus a large marine shell or conch-shell appears to be symbolical of Tepeyollotl. The god is alluded to by Sahagun as among the unlucky symbols. He figures as one of the faces of the double-headed Quaxolotl.
MYTHS
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says: [[334]]
“They considered Tepeyolotli the lord of these thirteen signs in which they celebrated his festival, during the four last of which they fasted, out of reverence, on account of the earth’s having remained after the deluge. But as its conditions were disordered or filthy, they did not consider the sacrifices of these signs as good or clean, but, on the contrary, as unclean, and they applied to them an appellation which in common phraseology we might explain by the term ‘sacrifices of filth.’ These last four signs in which they fasted were likewise out of reverence and in honour of Suguequezal (Xochiquetzal), the wife of Tonacatecotle, whose name signifies the lifting up or raising up of the Roses, for they say that goddess caused the earth to flourish. This proper name might be written Tiscuelutli, which is the Heart of the Mountain, which means the echo.”
The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says:
“The name refers to the manner in which the earth was preserved after the deluge. The sacrifices of these thirteen days were not deemed good; they might be interpreted in Spanish ‘sacrifices of dung.’
“The sign under which number one is written caused paralysis and evil humours. Two was appropriated to drunkards; and three was applied to the earth. Tepeolotlec presided over those thirteen days in which they celebrated a festival; and during the last four days of which (where the hands are marked) they fasted. Tepeolotlec means Lord of Animals.
“The four days of the fast were in honour of Suciquecal, who was the man who remained in the earth which we now inhabit. Tepeolotlec is the same as the echo of the voice when it reverberates in a valley from one mountain to another. They bestowed the appellation of the tiger on the earth because the tiger is a very courageous animal, and they say that the deluge ceased at the reverberation caused by the echo in the mountains.”
NATURE AND STATUS
The commentators of the Interpretative Codices briefly [[335]]explain Tepeyollotl as “echo” and “earth.” As Seler states,[2] it is most probable that he is a cave-god, an alien barbaric deity, perhaps identical with the god whom the Maya tribes of Chiapas called Votan or “heart.” Seler also believes him to be Tezcatlipocâ in his form as an apparition.[3] It is strange that it is only in the works of the interpreters that he is mentioned at all, and we can discover no precise locality where his worship was celebrated. The interpreters also designate him “Lord of the Animals,” and add that the name of jaguar is given to the earth, because the jaguar is the wildest of beasts. It may be as Seler declares, that “in order to understand and explain this figure we have to start from the jaguar (ocelotl).” The Indians of the Vera Paz district in Guatemala, when they met this beast, instead of attacking him or running away, knelt down and began to confess their sins,[4] and it is probable that some such species of worship was paid Tepeyollotl, who by his mouth-painting, and as ruler of the third day-sign and third week, in the Codex Borgia, is certainly depicted as a jaguar. But it seems possible, too, that this beast, perhaps because it dwelt in caves, and because of its terrible nightly roaring, may have symbolized for the Mexicans the earth itself in its dangerous aspect of earthquake.[5] The Nagualists, a politico-religious secret society of post-Conquest origin, paid especial reverence to the jaguar, whom they regarded as a beast-patron or totemic guardian. It is clear that their conception of him arose out of that of Tepeyollotl. [[336]]
[1] See L. Spence, The Popol Vuh. London, 1908. [↑]
[2] Commentary on Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, p. 43. [↑]
[3] See Section on Tezcatlipocâ. [↑]
[4] Las Casas, Apologetica, c. cxcix; Herrera, 4, 10, c. xiii. [↑]
[5] Seler (Commentary on Codex Vaticanus B, p. 102) sees in a passage in Sahagun (bk. v, c. 1) an association between the omen of a jaguar roaring in the mountains by night and the echo thereof and Tepeyollotl. [↑]