TEZCATLIPOCÂ = “FIERY MIRROR”

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—By far the best representation of Tezcatlipocâ in any of the manuscripts is that to be found on page 17 of Codex Borgia, where he is seen in connection with the insignia of the twenty calendric days. The picture on the lower right portion of page 21 is without these symbols, but is almost identical with the former figure. The god wears the black body-paint of a priest, and his face-painting is similar to that of Uitzilopochtli, that is, it consists of [[92]]black horizontal stripes upon a yellow ground, the latter having the same origin as in the case of Uitzilopochtli. From his back rises a very large and elaborate bunch of feather plumes, which arches itself over his head. His hair, dressed in a manner which resembles the “night-hair” of Mictlantecutli, is ornamented with feather-balls as indicating his sacrificial character, and in the picture on page 21 several of these depend from his side-locks. He wears the white ring (anauatl) on his breast, and a short tunic, seemingly covered with stellar devices. His right foot ends in the smoking mirror symbolic of his name and in which he was supposed to observe the actions of humanity, and on page 21 he carries the jaguar-skin purse in which the priests placed copal for incense. In his left hand he holds a shield, the field of which is a tawny yellow in colour, traversed by two white stripes, and a paper banner. On page 3 the god is shown in a springing attitude. He wears the face and body-paint characteristic of him, and the warrior’s headdress, with hair tousled on one side, and the blue nasal rod, with square plaque, falling over the mouth. At the side of the head is the fiery mirror which gives him his name. On page 14 he is seen wearing on his breast, and fastened to two strong red leather straps, the white ring teocuitlaanauatl, an ornament resembling a large, round eye. On his back is a feather device known as the “quetzal feather-pot.” The right foot, as in other pictures of him, is replaced by a small fiery mirror and his left by an obsidian knife.

THE RED AND BLACK TEZCATLIPOCÂS.

(Codex Borgia, sheet 21.)

Codex Borbonicus.—In this manuscript Tezcatlipocâ is depicted with the yellow-and-black face-painting, but in his form as a black god. At his forehead is the smoking mirror, on his back the large quetzal-feather ornament with a banner, on his breast the anauatl, and round his loins the hip-cloth, with a bordering of red eyes. On his feet he wears sandals showing the motif of the obsidian snake, and his headdress is painted with the stellar symbol, the round white spots on a black ground, which typifies the night sky. Here also we see two bamboo staves attached to his neck—undoubtedly the collar worn by captives or slaves which [[93]]rendered flight impossible, and which Tezcatlipocâ wears to symbolize his enslavement of the Mexican people and in allusion to his name Titlacauan, which means “He whose slaves we are.” The spear and the net-pouch in this place recall the insignia of Mixcoatl, and seem to indicate that Tezcatlipocâ was a god of the Chichimec or hunting folk of the North Steppes, or perhaps it may merely symbolize the proneness of all stellar, lunar and solar deities in Mexico to the chase.

Tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection.—In this manuscript Tezcatlipocâ appears as the representative of the Moon-god and sits opposite the Sun-god. He is shown with his usual attributes and face-painting, the smoking mirror in the region of the ear, the white ring on his breast, and on his back the quetzalcomitl, the large quetzal-feather ornament in which a banner is stuck. In his right hand he holds several of the agave-spikes which the priests employed for piercing the tongue. In this manuscript the Death-god is also depicted as Tezcatlipocâ, and wears his body-and-face painting and his general insignia, as well as the rosette at the nape of the neck. In this place, however, the snail-shaped shield rises above the forehead, which is also decorated with a row of feather balls and a single arara plume.

(From Codex Vaticanus A, sheet 44 Verso.)

(From Codex Magliabecchiano, sheet 3, folio 89.)

TEZCATLIPOCÂ IN VARIOUS FORMS.

Codex Magliabecchiano.—A good illustration of Tezcatlipocâ will be found on page 89 of this codex. The figure of the god is surrounded by footprints, symbolic, probably, of the circumstance that as the youngest and swiftest of the gods he arrived first at the teotleco festival (coming of the gods) and impressed his footprint on the heap of maize arranged by the priests for its reception in order that they might know of his coming. He wears a large panache of green feathers, consisting of two parts; that immediately above the face being inserted in a tumbler-shaped ornament painted blue, with a red rim, and having six white disks upon its field. To the lower part of this is joined a rainbow-like device in various colours, from which springs the main part of the feather panache. The upper fore-part of the face is painted yellow, the rear portion purple or grey, and [[94]]the region about the mouth is bright red. He is bearded. The tunic is white, with a white shoulder-knot, and a bunch of maize springs from the right shoulder. On the breast is the god’s mirror, and at the waist an ornament or symbol resembling the Maya Kin (sun) sign, painted blue. The rest of the body-colour is purple-grey. In the left hand he carries an atlatl, or spear-thrower, with a serpent’s head having a brown mane, and bearing a resemblance to some horse-like ornamental motifs found in Guatemala. In the right hand he bears a shield, the field of which is divided into two parts, the right painted blue and bearing what would seem to be the nose-ornament of the pulque-gods, whilst the left resembles the design found on the skirt of the Earth-goddess. The shield is crossed behind by four darts and is surmounted by a befeathered banner. In this place Tezcatlipocâ is undoubtedly represented in his variant of “the young warrior,” as his equipment shows.

Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—The god’s feather crown is set with obsidian knives. His face is barred with horizontal lines of black, and on his back he carries a basket filled with quetzal-feathers. His arm-ring is set with obsidian knives, and one-half of his leg is painted black. On his legs and feet he wears shells and sandals, the latter the so-called “obsidian sandals,” painted with a picture of the obsidian snake. His arms are covered with paper fans. His shield is inlaid with feather balls, and in one of his hands he holds the “seeing” or scrying implement tlachialoni.

Acosta, describing Tezcatlipocâ, says[42]: “They called this idol Tezcallipuca, he was made of black, shining stone like to Jayel, being attired with some Gentile devises after their manner. It had ear-rings of gold and silver, and through the nether lip a small canon of christall, in length half a foote, in the which they sometimes put a greene feather, and sometimes an azure, which made it resemble sometimes an emerald and sometimes a turquois. It had the haire broided and bound up with a haire-lace of gold burnished, [[95]]at the end whereof did hang an eare of gold, with two fire-brands of smoke painted therein which did signify the praires of the afflicted and sinners that he heard, when they recommended themselves to him. Betwixt the two eares hanged a number of small herons. He had a jewell hanging at his neck so great that it covered all his stomake. Upon his armes bracelets of gold, upon his navill a rich, green stone, and in his left hand a fanne of precious feathers, of greene, azure and yellow, which came forth of a looking-glasse of gold, shining and well-burnished, and that signified, that within this looking-glasse he saw whatever was done in the world. They called this glasse or chaston of gold irlacheaya,[43] which signifies his glass for to look in. In his right hand he held foure darts which signified the chastisement he gave to the wicked for their sins.… They held this idoll Tescatlipuca for the god of drought, of famine, barrenness and pestilence. And therefore they painted him in another form, being set in great majesty upon a stoole, compassed in with a red curtin, painted and wrought with the heads and bones of dead men. In the left hand it had a target with five pines, like unto pine apples of cotton, and in the right a little dart with a threatening countenance, and the arm stretched out as if he would cast it and from the target came foure darts. It had the countenance of an angry man and in choller, the body all painted blacke and the head full of quailes feathers.”

Bernal Diaz says of him (bk. vi. c. 91): “Then we saw on the other side on the left hand there stood the other great image the same height as Huichilobos, and it had a face like a bear[44] and eyes that shone, made of their mirrors which they call Tezcat, and the body plastered with precious stones like that of Huichilobos, for they say that the two are brothers; and this Tezcatepuca was the god of Hell and had charge of the souls of the Mexicans, and his body was girt with figures like little devils with snakes’ tails.”

Face-mask.—When Cortéz landed at Vera Cruz, the [[96]]messengers of Motecuhzoma tendered him, along with other presents, “the ornaments or finery with which Tezcatlipocâ was decorated.” The mask belonging to this costume is still in existence, and is to be seen in the room devoted to American antiquities in the British Museum. It consists of a human skull encrusted with mosaic in alternate bands of black and green, the nasal cavity being set with a red stone and the eyes with pyrites ringed with white.

Statuette.—A statuette of Tezcatlipocâ from the Valley of Mexico, and now in the Uhde collection, shows the god as nude, with the exception of a loin-cloth and a flat headdress, rising in the middle.

Tezcatlipocâ in His Black and Red Forms.—Tezcatlipocâ was regarded by the Mexican people as possessing two definite forms, the Black and the Red. In this paragraph we will deal only with the insignia of these and not with their mythological significance, which we will attempt to explain in its proper place. Perhaps the best and most classical examples of these forms we possess are to be observed on sheet 21 of Codex Borgia, on both halves of which we see the two forms represented as parallel figures, closely resembling one another in nearly every detail. It should at once be stated that the Red Tezcatlipocâ is merely a variant of Xipe, and indeed in one place in Codex Vaticanus B we observe that his loin-cloth forks in the swallow-tail fashion noticeable in the loin-cloth of that god, and, generally speaking, the red colours he wears are those of the roseate spoon-bill, the feathers of which are typical of Xipe’s dress. These pictures in the Codex Borgia are supplemented by two on sheets 85 and 86 of Vaticanus B, where the swallow-tail ends of the loin-cloth and the nasal rod show distinctly that the Red Tezcatlipocâ is only a form of Xipe. The Black Tezcatlipocâ opposite him is, however, represented with the striped body-paint of Tlauizcalpantecutli, the arms being entirely black. In the Borgia paintings the Black Tezcatlipocâ wears the black body-paint of the priest, his face-paint is alternately black and yellow, he has the warrior’s tousled hair, the nasal rod with the square plaque falling [[97]]over the mouth, the forked heron-feather adornment in his hair, and on his temple the smoking mirror. The foot, too, is torn off and replaced by a smoking mirror—all symbolical of the “standard” character of the god’s sable form. The Red Tezcatlipocâ represented in the upper portion of Borgia (sheet 21) has a yellow face-painting striped with horizontal bands of red and his body-paint is red. On the red bands crossing the face is seen the stellar eye. A brown fillet encircles a red headdress, and the torn-off foot is also replaced by the smoking mirror. On his back is seen the bundle of the merchant, surmounted by the arara bird, two symbols which indicate his southern character. The representation of the Red Tezcatlipocâ in the lower portion of sheet 21 is practically similar to this, save that he wears feather balls and heron plumes in his headdress, is without the merchant’s pack, and holds in one hand the jaguar-skin copal-bag of the priests and the smoking rubber ball used as incense.

These forms of the god have been laid down in myth as distinctly separate deities, especially in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas.[45]

FESTIVALS

Toxcatl.—This, one of the most important of all the Mexican festivals, is described by Sahagun substantially as follows: The fifth month called toxcatl and sometimes tepopochuiliztli, was begun by the most solemn and famous feast of the year, in honour of the principal Mexican god, a god known by a multitude of names and epithets, among which were Tezcatlipocâ, Titlacaoan, Yautl, Telpuchtli, and Tlamatzincatl. A year before this feast one of the most distinguished of the captives reserved for sacrifice was chosen for his superior grace and personal appearance from among all his fellows, and given in charge to the priestly functionaries called calpixques. These instructed him with great diligence in all the arts pertaining to good breeding, [[98]]such as playing on the flute, deportment, conversation, saluting those he happened to meet, the use of straight cane tobacco-pipes and of flowers. He was attended upon by eight pages, who were clad in the livery of the palace, and had perfect liberty to go where he pleased night and day; while his food was so rich that, to guard against his growing too fat, it was at times necessary to vary the diet by a purge of salt and water. Everywhere honoured and adored as the living image and accredited representative of Tezcatlipocâ, he went about playing on a small shrill clay flute or fife, and adorned with rich and curious raiment furnished by the king, while all he met did him reverence, kissing the earth. All his body and face was painted black, his long hair flowed to the waist; his head was covered with white hens’ feathers stuck on with resin, and covered with a garland of the flowers called izquixochitl,[46] while two strings of the same flowers crossed his body in the fashion of cross-belts. Earrings of gold, a necklace of precious stones, with a great dependent gem hanging to the breast, a lip-ornament (barbote) of sea-shell, bracelets of gold above the elbow on each arm, and strings of gems called macuextlu winding from wrist almost to elbow, were part of his ornaments. He was covered with a rich, beautifully fringed mantle of netting, and bore on his shoulders something like a purse made of white cloth of a span square, ornamented with tassels and a fringe. A white maxtle of a span broad went about his loins, the two ends, curiously wrought, falling in front almost to the knee. Little bells of gold hung upon his feet, which were shod with painted sandals called ocelunacace.

(From Codex Borgia.) (From the Sahagun MS.)

(Pottery figure from the Uhde Collection.)

TEZCATLIPOCÂ.

All this was the attire he wore from the beginning of his year of preparation; but twenty days before the coming of the festival they changed his vestments, washed away the paint or dye from his skin, and cut down his long hair to the length, and arranged it after the fashion, of the hair of the captains, tying it up on the crown of the head with feathers and fringe and two gold-buttoned tassels. At the same time they married to him four damsels, who had [[99]]been pampered and educated for this purpose, and who were surnamed respectively after the four goddesses, Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Atlantonan, and Uixtociuatl. Five days before the great day of the feast, the day of the feast being counted one, all the people, high and low, the king it would appear being alone excepted, went out to celebrate with the man-god a solemn banquet and dance, in the ward called Tecanman; the fourth day before the feast the same was done in the ward in which was guarded the statue of Tezcatlipocâ. The little hill or island called Tepetzinco, rising out of the waters of the Lake of Mexico, was the scene of the next day’s solemnities; which were renewed for the last time on the next day, or that immediately preceding the great day, on another like island called Tepelpulco, or Tepepulco. There, with the four women who had been given to him for his consolation, the honoured victim was put into a covered canoe usually reserved for the sole use of the king, and he was carried across the lake to a place called Tlapitzaoayan, near the road that goes from Yztapalapan to Chalco, at a place where was a little hill called Acaccuilpan, or Cabaltepec. Here left him the four beautiful girls whose society for twenty days he had enjoyed, they returning to the capital with all the people. There accompanied him only those eight attendants who had been with him all the year. Almost alone, done with the joys of beauty, banquet, and dance, bearing a bundle of his flutes, he walked to a little cu, some distance from the road mentioned above, and about a league removed from the city. He marched up the temple steps; and as he ascended he dashed down and broke on every step one of the flutes that he had been accustomed to play on in the days of his prosperity. He reached the top, where he was sacrificed. From the sacrificial stone his body was not hurled down the steps, but was carried by four men down to the tzompantli, to the place of the spitting of heads.

TEZCATLIPOCÂ.

STONE ALTAR OF SKULLS TO TEZCATLIPOCÂ CARVED IN STONE.

(Museo Naçional, Mexico.)

In this feast of toxcatl, in the cu called Uitznahuac, where the image of Uitzilopochtli was always kept, the priests made a bust of this god out of tzoalli dough, with pieces of [[100]]mizquitl[47]-wood inserted by way of bones. They decorated it with his ornaments; putting on a jacket wrought over with human bones, a mantle of very thin nequen, and another mantle called the Tlaquaquallo, covered with rich feathers, fitting the head below and widening out above; in the middle of this stood up a little rod, also decorated with feathers, and sticking into the top of the rod was a flint knife half covered with blood. The image was set on a platform made of pieces of wood resembling snakes, and so arranged that heads and tails alternated all the way round; the whole borne by many captains and men of war. Before this image and platform a number of strong youths carried an enormous sheet of paper resembling pasteboard, twenty fathoms long, one fathom broad, and a little less than an inch thick; it was supported by spear-shafts arranged in pairs of one shaft above and one below the paper, while persons on either side of the paper held one of these pairs in one hand. When the procession, with dancing and singing, reached the cu to be ascended, the platform was carefully and cautiously hoisted up by cords attached to its four corners, the image was set on a seat, and those who carried the paper rolled it up and set down the roll before the bust of the god. It was sunset when the image was so set up; and the following morning everyone offered food in his own house before the image of Uitzilopochtli, incensing also such images of the other gods as he had, and then went to offer quails’ blood before the image set up on the cu. The king began, wringing off the heads of four quails; the priests offered next, then all the people; the whole multitude carrying clay fire-pans and burning copal incense of every kind, after which everyone threw his live coals on a great hearth in the temple yard. The virgins painted their faces, put on their heads garlands of parched maize, with strings of the same across their breasts, decorated their arms and legs with red feathers, and carried black paper flags stuck into split canes. The flags of the daughters of the nobles were not of paper, but of a thin cloth called canauac, painted [[101]]with vertical black stripes. These girls, joining hands, danced round the great hearth, upon or over which, on an elevated place of some kind, there danced, giving the time and step, two men, having each a kind of pine cage covered with paper flags on his shoulders, the strap supporting which passed, not across the forehead—the usual way for men to carry a burden—but across the chest, as was the fashion with women. They bore shields of paper, crumpled up like great flowers, their heads were adorned with white feathers, their lips and part of the face were smeared with sugar-cane juice, which produced a peculiar effect over the black with which their faces were always painted. They carried in their hands pieces of paper called amasmaxtli[48] and sceptres of palm-wood tipped with a black flower and having in the lower part a ball of black feathers. In dancing they used this sceptre like a staff, and the part by which they grasped it was wrapped round with a paper painted with black lines. The music for the dancers was supplied by a party of unseen musicians, who occupied one of the temple buildings, where they sat, he that played the drum in the centre, and the performers on the other instruments about him. The men and women danced on till night, but the strictest order and decency were preserved, and any lewd word or look brought down swift punishment from the appointed overseers.

This feast was closed by the death of a youth who had been during the past year dedicated to and taken care of for Uitzilopochtli, resembling in this the victim of Tezcatlipocâ, whose companion he had indeed been, but without receiving such high honours. This Uitzilopochtli youth was entitled Ixteocalli,[49] or Tlacauepan, or Teicauhtzin,[50] and was held to be the image and representative of the god. When the day of his death came the priests decorated him with papers painted over with black circles, and put a mitre of eagles’ feathers on his head, in the midst of whose plumes was stuck a flint knife, stained half-way up with blood and adorned with red feathers. Tied to his shoulders by strings [[102]]passing across the breast was a piece of very thin cloth, about a span square, and over it hung a little bag. Over one of his arms was thrown a wild beast’s skin, arranged somewhat like a maniple; bells of gold jingled at his legs as he walked or danced. There were two peculiar things connected with the death of this youth: first, he had absolute liberty of choice regarding the hour in which he was to die; and, second, he was not extended upon any block or altar, but when he wished he threw himself into the arms of the priests, and had his heart so cut out. His head was then hacked off and spitted alongside that of the Tezcatlipocâ youth, of whom we have spoken already. In this same day the priests made little marks on children, cutting them, with thin stone knives, in the breast, stomach, wrists, and fleshy parts of the arms; marks, as the Spanish priests considered, by which the devil should know his own sheep.

Teotleco.—The movable feasts sacred to Tezcatlipocâ and alluded to in the list of his festivals are only briefly mentioned by Sahagun, and do not appear to have been of any particular importance. As regards the Teotleco Sahagun says: “The twelfth month was called Teotleco, which signifies the arrival of the gods. A festival was celebrated in honour of all the gods who were said to have gone to some country, I know not where. On the last day of the month a greater one was held, because the gods had returned.

“On the fifteenth day of this month the young boys and the servitors decked all the altars or oratories of the gods with boughs, as well those which were in the houses as the images which were set up by the wayside and at the cross-roads. This work was paid for in maize. Some received a basketful, and others only a few ears.

“On the eighteenth day the ever-youthful god Tlamatzincatl, or Titlacauan, arrived. It was said that he marched better and arrived the first because he was young and strong. Food was offered him in his temple on that night. Everyone drank, ate, and made merry; the old people especially celebrated the arrival of the god by drinking wine, and it was alleged that his feet were washed by these rejoicings. [[103]]The last day of the month was marked by a great festival, on account of the belief that the whole of the gods arrived at that time. On the preceding night a quantity of flour was kneaded on a carpet into the shape of a cheese, it being supposed that the gods would leave a footprint thereon as a sign of their return. The chief attendant watched all night, going to and fro to see if the impression appeared. When he at last saw it he called out, ‘The master has arrived,’ and at once the priests of the temple began to sound the horns, trumpets, and other musical instruments used by them. Upon hearing this noise everyone ran forthwith to offer food in all the temples or oratories, and gave themselves up to renewed rejoicings, to wash the feet of the gods, as we have already described.

“The next day the aged gods were said to come last, because they walked more slowly on account of their age. On that day several captives were doomed to be burnt alive. A great brazier was prepared; young men disguised as monsters danced round about it, and while dancing, hurled the unhappy victims into the fire, in the manner already explained. Other ceremonies took place which will be described in the account of this festival.”

MYTHS

Sahagun says of Tezcatlipocâ that he was invisible and was able to penetrate into all places, heaven, earth, and hell. The Mexicans, he says, believed that he wandered over the earth stirring up strife and war, and setting men against one another. He also remarks that he was the true giver of prosperity, and extremely capricious.[51]

Acosta calls him the god of drought, famine, barrenness, and pestilence.[52]

Clavigero alludes to him as the chief of the gods worshipped in Mexico, the god of providence, the soul of the world, the creator of heaven and earth and master of all things. “They represented him as young, to denote that no length of years ever diminished his power. They believed [[104]]that he rewarded with various benefits the just, and punished the wicked with diseases and other afflictions.”[53]

The interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis states that “Tezcatlipocâ is he who appeared to the nation on the mountain of the mirror, as they say, and is he who tempted Quetzalcoatl the penitent.” Elsewhere he says: “They do not here paint Tezcatlipocâ with a foot formed of a serpent, since they say that this festival [panquetzaliztli] relates to a time previous to his sinning while still in heaven, and that hence happened the war in heaven, from whence wars sprung below.”

The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A. says of him: “Tezcatlipocâ, here represented, was one of their most potent gods. They say that he appeared in that country on the top of a mountain called Tezcatepu, which signifies the mountain of mirrors.” Later on he remarks that the god was sometimes painted with the feet of a man and of a cock, “as they say his name bears allusion to this circumstance. He is clothed with a fowl, which seems to cry in laughing accents, and when it crows, Oa, Oa, Oa, they say that it deceived the “first woman, who committed sin, and accordingly they place him near the goddess of pollution.”

A report on the Huaxtec territory, dated 1579, states that: “They relate another fable, that they had two other effigies as gods, one called Ometochtli, who is the god of wine, the other Tezcatlipocâ, which is the name of the most exalted idol worshipped by them, and with these they had painted the figure of a woman named Hueytonantzin, that is ‘our great mother,’ because they said that she was the mother of all these gods or demons. And those four above-mentioned male demons, they related, had killed this great mother, founding with her the institution of human sacrifice, and taking her heart out of her breast, and presenting it to the sun. Similarly, they related that the idol Tezcatlipocâ had killed the god of wine with his consent and concurrence, giving out that in this way he gave eternal life, and that if he did not die, all persons drinking wine must die; but that the [[105]]death of this Ometochtli was only the sleep of one drunk, that he afterwards recovered, and again became fresh and well.”

Tezcatlipocâ, it will be remembered, is alluded to in the cosmogonic myths of Mendieta and Sahagun, already related in the chapter on Cosmogony. The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas refers to him as the creator, says that “he made the sun to shine,” and states that he was the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, which “sank in the water.” He also made the Tazcaquavlt, or “tree of the mirror,” fashioned four hundred men and a hundred women as food for the sun, and, along with Quetzalcoatl, constructed “the road in the heavens, the Milky Way.”

Sahagun states[54] that after Tezcatlipocâ had succeeded in driving Quetzalcoatl from the country, “he proceeded further guilefully to kill many Toltecs and to ally himself by marriage with Vemac or Uemac, who was the temporal lord of the Toltecs, even as Quetzalcoatl was the spiritual ruler of that people. To accomplish these things Tezcatlipocâ took the appearance of a poor foreigner and presented himself naked, as was the custom of such people, in the market-place of Tulla, selling green chilli pepper. Now the palace of Vemac, the great king, overlooked the market-place, and he had an only daughter, and the girl, looking by chance among the buyers and sellers, saw the disguised god. She was smitten through with love of him, and she began to sicken. Vemac heard of her sickness, and he inquired of the women who guarded her as to what ailed his daughter. They told him as best they could, how for the love of a peddler of pepper, named Toveyo, the princess had lain down to die. The king immediately sent a crier upon the mountain Tzatzitepec to make this proclamation: ‘O Toltecs, seek me out Toveyo that goes about selling green pepper, let him be brought before me.’ So the people sought everywhere for the pepper vendor, but he was nowhere to be found. Then after they could not find him, he appeared [[106]]of his own accord one day, at his old place and trade in the market. He was brought before the king, who said to him: ‘Where dost thou belong to?’ and Toveyo answered, ‘I am a foreigner, come here to sell my green pepper.’ ‘Why dost thou delay to cover thyself with breeches and a blanket?’ said Vemac. Toveyo answered that in his country such things were not in the fashion. Vemac continued: ‘My daughter longs after thee, not willing to be comforted by any Toltec. She is sick of love and thou must heal her.’ But Toveyo replied: ‘This thing can in no wise be; kill me first; I desire to die, not being worthy to hear these words, who get my living by selling green pepper.’ ‘I tell thee,’ said the king, ‘that thou must heal my daughter of this her sickness; fear not.’ Then they took the cunning god and washed him, and cut his hair, and dyed all his body and put breeches on him and a blanket; and the king Vemac said, ‘Get thee in and see my daughter, there, where they guard her.’ Then the young man went in and he remained with the princess and she became sound and well; thus Toveyo became the son-in-law of the king of Tulla.

“Then, behold, all the Toltecs, being filled with jealousy and offended, spake injurious and insulting words against King Vemac, saying among themselves, ‘Of all the Toltecs can there not be found a man, that this Vemac marries his daughter to a peddler?’ Now when the king heard all the injurious and insulting words that the people spake against him he was moved, and he spoke to the people saying, ‘Come hither, behold I have heard all these things that ye say against me in the matter of my son-in-law Toveyo; dissimulate then; take him deceitfully with you to the war of Cacatepec and Coatepec, and let the enemy kill him there.’ Having heard these words, the Toltecs armed themselves, and collected a multitude and went to the war, bringing Toveyo along. Arrived where the fighting was to take place, they hid him with the lame and the dwarfs, charging them, as the custom was in such cases, to watch for the enemy, while the soldiers went on to the attack. The battle began. The Toltecs at once gave way, treacherously [[107]]and guilefully deserting Toveyo and the cripples. Leaving them to be slaughtered at their post, they returned to Tulla and told the king how they had left Toveyo and his companions alone in the hands of the enemy. When the king heard the treason he was glad, thinking Toveyo dead, for he was ashamed of having him for a son-in-law. Affairs had gone otherwise, however, with Toveyo from what the plotters supposed. On the approach of the hostile army he consoled his deformed companions, saying: ‘Fear nothing; the enemy come against us, but I know that I shall kill them all.’ Then he rose up and went forward against them, against the men of Coatepec and Cacatepec. He put them to flight and slew of them without number. When this came to the ears of Vemac it weighed upon and terrified him exceedingly. He said to his Toltecs, ‘Let us now go and receive my son-in-law.’ So they all went out with King Vemac to receive Toveyo, bearing the arms and devices called quetzalapanecayutl, and the shields called xiuhchimali.[55] They gave these things to Toveyo, and he and his comrades received them with dancing and the music of flutes, with triumph and rejoicing. Furthermore, on reaching the palace of the king, plumes were put upon the heads of the conquerors, and all the body of each of them was stained yellow, and all the face red. This was the customary reward of those that came back victorious from war. And King Vemac said to his son-in-law: ‘I am now satisfied with what thou hast done, and the Toltecs are satisfied; thou hast dealt very well with our enemies, rest and take thine ease.’ But Toveyo held his peace.

“And after this, Toveyo adorned all his body with the rich feathers called tocivitl, and commanded the Toltecs to gather together for a festival, and sent a crier up to the top of the mountain Tzatzitepec, to call in the strangers and the people afar off to dance and to feast. A numberless multitude gathered to Tulla. When they were all gathered, Toveyo led them out, young men and girls, to a place called Texcalapa, where he himself began and led the dancing, playing [[108]]on a drum. He sang too, singing each verse to the dancers, who sang it after him, though they knew not the song beforehand. Then was to be seen a marvellous and terrible thing. A panic seized the Toltecs. There was a gorge or ravine there, with a river rushing through it called the Texcaltlauhco. A stone bridge led over the river. Toveyo broke down this bridge as the people fled. He saw them tread and crush each other down, under-foot, and over into the abyss. They that fell were turned into rocks and stones; as for those that escaped, they did not see nor think that it was Toveyo and his sorceries had wrought this great destruction; they were blinded by the witchcraft of the god, and out of their senses like drunken men.

“Tezcatlipocâ then proceeded to hatch further evil against the Toltecs. He took the appearance of a certain valiant man called Teguioa, and commanded a crier to summon all the inhabitants of Tulla and its neighbourhood to come and help at a certain piece of work in a certain flower-garden (said to have been a garden belonging to Quetzalcoatl). All the people gathered to the work, whereupon the disguised god fell upon them, knocking them on the head with a hoe. Those that escaped the hoe were trodden down and killed by their fellows in attempting to escape. A countless number was slain. Every man that had come to the work was left lying dead among the trodden flowers.

“And after this Tezcatlipocâ wrought another witchcraft against the Toltecs. He called himself Tlacavepan, or Acexcoch, and came and sat down in the midst of the market-place of Tulla having a little manikin (said to have been Uitzilopochtli) dancing upon his hand. There was an instant uproar of all the buyers and sellers and a rush to see the miracle. The people crushed and trod each other down, so that many were killed there; and all this happened many times. At last the god-sorcerer cried out on one such occasion: ‘What is this? Do you not see that you are befooled by us? Stone and kill us.’ So the people took up stones and killed the said sorcerer and his little dancing manikin. But when the body of the sorcerer had lain in [[109]]the market-place for some time it began to stink and to taint the air, and the wind of it poisoned many. Then the dead sorcerer spake again, saying: ‘Cast this body outside the town, for many Toltecs die because of it.’ So they prepared to cast out the body, and fastened ropes thereto and pulled. But the ill-smelling corpse was so heavy that they could not move it. Then a crier made a proclamation, saying: ‘Come, all ye Toltecs, and bring ropes with you, that we may drag out and get rid of this pestilential carcass.’ All came accordingly, bringing ropes, and the ropes were fastened to the body and all pulled. It was utterly in vain. Rope after rope broke with a sudden snap, and those that dragged on a rope fell and were killed when it broke. Then the dead wizard looked up and said; ‘O Toltecs, a verse of song is needed.’ And he himself gave them a verse. They repeated the verse after him, and, singing it, pulled all together, so that with shouts they hauled the body out of the city, though still not without many ropes breaking and many persons being killed as before. All this being over, those Toltecs that remained unhurt returned every man to his place, not remembering anything of what had happened, for they were all as drunken.

“Other signs and wonders were wrought by Tezcatlipocâ in his rôle of sorcerer. A white bird called Iztac cuixtli was clearly seen flying over Tulla, transfixed with a dart. At night also, the sierra called Zacatepec burned, and the flames were seen from afar. All the people were stirred up and affrighted, saying one to another, ‘O Toltecs, it is all over with us now; the time of the end of Tulla is come; alas for us, whither shall we go?’

“Then Tezcatlipocâ wrought another evil upon the Toltecs; he rained down stones upon them. There fell also, at the same time, a great stone from heaven called Techcatl; and when it fell the god-sorcerer took the appearance of an old woman, and went about selling little banners in a place called Chapultepec Cuitlapilco, otherwise named Uetzinco. Many then became mad and bought of these banners and went to the place where was the stone Techcatl, and there [[110]]got themselves killed; and no one was found to say so much as, ‘What is this that happens to us?’ They were all mad.

“Another woe Tezcatlipocâ brought upon the Toltecs. All their victuals suddenly became sour, and no one was able to eat of them. The old woman, above mentioned, took up then her abode in a place called Xochitla, and began to roast maize: and the odour of the roasted maize reached all the cities round about. The starving people set out immediately, and with one accord, to go where the old woman was. They reached her instantly, for here it may be again said, that the Toltecs were exceedingly light of foot, and arrived always immediately whithersoever they wished to go. As for the Toltecs that gathered to the mock sorceress, not one of them escaped. She killed them every one.”

These feats of Tezcatlipocâ against the Toltecs seem to have reference to the various species of charm wielded by the enchanter; the love-charm, the charm by music, by disease, by destruction of victuals. The rain of stone signified barrenness, drought, which was implied by the nature of the god, the deity of obsidian and of tempests.

For other myths regarding Tezcatlipocâ see the chapter on Cosmogony.

NATURE AND STATUS

In my opinion the early significance of Tezcatlipocâ arises out of his connection with obsidian. This stone had an especial sanctity for the Mexicans, as it provided the sacrificial knives employed by the priests, and we possess good evidence that stone in its fetish form was worshipped even so late as the eighteenth century by the Nahuatl-speaking Chotas, who comprised it in a trinity with the Dawn and the Serpent.[56] From a passage in Acosta[57] we are justified in assuming that Tezcatlipocâ’s idol was of obsidian, and, like the Quiche god Tohil, mentioned in the Popol Vuh, he wore sandals of obsidian, as is witnessed by one of his representations in Codex Borbonicus, where his footgear is painted with the zigzag line of the obsidian snake. [[111]]

Tezcatlipocâ was unquestionably the god of the itztli (obsidian) stone, and Seler[58] has identified him with Iztli, the stone-knife god, the second of the lords of the night. In certain codices, too, he is represented as having such a knife in place of a foot, and we know that it was a fairly common practice of the Mexican artists to indicate the name or race of an individual by drawing one of his feet in a hieroglyphical manner.[59] I believe, too, that the net-like garment worn at times by the god above his other attire is an adaptation of the mesh-bag in which Mexican hunters carried flints for use as spear- and arrow-heads.

This, as well as the fact that he was the god of the sharp-cutting obsidian from which such weapons were made, caused him to be regarded as patron deity of the wild hunting Chichimecs of the northern steppes, a connection which is eloquent of his erstwhile primitive character. It is clear, too, that Chalchiuhtotolin, the jewelled fowl, which is ruler of the eighteenth day-sign, tecpatl (obsidian knife), is merely a variant of Tezcatlipocâ.[60] [[112]]

But another important link connects Tezcatlipocâ with obsidian. Bernal Diaz states that they called this “Tezcat.” From it mirrors were manufactured as divinatory media by the wizard. Sahagun says[61] that it was known as aitztli (water obsidian), probably because of the high polish of which it was capable. Another such stone he mentions was called tepochtli, which I would translate “wizard stone,” and from which I think, by a process of etymological confusion, Tezcatlipocâ received one of his minor names, Telpochtli, “the youth.” The name of the god means “Smoking Mirror,” and Acosta[62] says that the Mexicans called Tezcatlipocâ’s mirror irlacheaya (an obvious error for tlachialoni) “his glass to look in,” otherwise the mirror or scrying-stone in which he was able to witness the doings of mankind. It is possible that the “smoke” which was said to rise from this mirror symbolized the haziness which is supposed to cloud the surface of a divinatory glass prior to the phenomenon of vision therein.

Thus from the shape beheld in the seer’s mirror, Tezcatlipocâ came to be regarded as the seer. That into which the wizard gazed became so closely identified with sorcery as to be thought of as wizard-like itself; for Tezcatlipocâ is, of all Mexican deities, the one most nearly connected with the wizard’s art. He is par excellence the nocturnal god who haunts the crossways and appears in a myriad phantom guises to the night-bound wayfarer. “These,” says Sahagun, “were masks that Tezcatlipocâ assumed to frighten the people.”

He wears the symbol of night upon his forehead; he is the moon, ruler of the night, the wizard who veils himself behind the clouds; he bears the severed arm of a woman who has died in childbed, as a magical instrument, as did the naualli of old Mexico. From him all ominous and uncanny sounds proceed: the howl of the jaguar (in which we perceive Tezcatlipocâ as the wizard metamorphosed [[113]]into the wer-animal), and the foreboding cry of the uactli bird, the voc, the bird of Hurakan in the Popol Vuh.

Tezcatlipocâ was undoubtedly connected with the wind, and this leads me to suspect that in the course of his evolution he came to be thought of as among that class of magical stones which in some mysterious manner is considered capable of raising a tempest under the spell of the sorcerer.[63] Of such a belief world-wide examples exist. In the Irish island of Fladdahuan such a stone was anointed when the fisher desired a wind[64] and was kept in wool wrappings. A piece of pumice-stone drifted to Puka-Puka, says Lang,[65] and was regarded as a god of winds and waves, to which offerings were made during hurricanes. Tezcatlipocâ is none other than the original “hurricane,” for he has been identified with the Hurakan of the Quiches of Guatemala alluded to in the Popol Vuh, from whose name the meteorological expression has been borrowed.

Whether or not he came to be looked upon as the wind of night which ravined through the empty streets and deserted countryside by virtue of the train of thought suggested above, many aspects of Tezcatlipocâ are eloquent of his boreal attributes. Thus, he is invisible and capricious, the object of mistrust among the people, who discerned in tempestuous weather a manifestation of his freakish bad temper. The myth in which he was described as pursuing Quetzalcoatl in tiger-form will, in the section which deals with that god, be indicated as an allegory of the clashing of the hurricane with the rain-bringing trade-wind. Lastly, as patron of war, of the warrior’s club and dance-house, he is, as the boisterous storm, emblematic of strife and discord. Seats of stone over-arched with green branches were provided for him throughout the city so that he might rest from his wanderings if he thought good. [[114]]

In the Aztec mind stone was symbolic of sin. Thus Tezcatlipocâ in his variant, Itzlacoliuhqui, is the just avenger, who punishes evil swiftly and terribly, for obsidian as the sacrificial knife was the instrument of justice.[66] The coldness of stone, its hardness and dryness, seem also to have given rise to the conception of him as god of the Toxcatl festival in the fifth month of the year, the dry season, when the sun stood at the zenith above Tenochtitlan. Thus, as the prayers to him eloquently affirm, he was the god of drought, of sereness, and barrenness.

In common with the majority of the greater Mexican deities, Tezcatlipocâ had a stellar connection. He was one of the Tzitzimimê who had fallen from heaven, and the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas remarks of him, “the constellation of the Great Bear descends to the water because it is Tezcatlipocâ, who has his seat there,” thus also indicating that he ruled the northern quarter, out of which, it was considered, no good thing might come. His Tzitzimimê shape appears to have been the spider. In American-Indian myth the stars are frequently regarded as having spider form, and especially so in Mexican myth. In several of the codices, notably in Codex Borbonicus, the Tzitzimimê or star-demons are represented in insect shape. Thus, Tezcatlipocâ, when he descended from heaven to harass Quetzalcoatl, did so by means of a spider’s web, so that we are justified in regarding the spider as his stellar form.

The origin of his conception as the sun of the north and as the setting sun seems reasonably clear and is secondary in character. As the sun sinks in the west its brilliant gold turns to a glassy red, reminiscent of the dull reflex of light in a surface of polished obsidian. The mirror held by Tezcatlipocâ, with its fringe of feathers, obviously represents the sun of evening. But he is also to be thought of as the torrid and blazing orb of the dry season, scorching and merciless.

I regard his several coloured forms as symbolic of various [[115]]kinds of weather. Thus, in his black form he appears to represent the rainy season; in his red, the torrid and dry period of the year; in his white, cold and frost; and in his striped painting, the embodiment of fair weather. Thus Tezcatlipocâ is the atmospheric god par excellence, ruler of all meteorological conditions. In the prayers offered up to him it is frequently stated that he may, if he so chooses, send rain and plenty, and this aspect of him seems to account for his variously coloured disguises. That these were, indeed, regarded as practically separate divine forms is clear from the first chapter of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, which alludes to the Black and Red Tezcatlipocâ as two entirely different gods.

Tezcatlipocâ, at the period of the Conquest, had developed attributes of a more lofty kind than any of those already described. Like Quetzalcoatl, and because he was a god of the wind or atmosphere, he came to be regarded as the personification of the breath of life. In the mind of savage man the wind is usually the giver of breath, the great store-house of respiration, the source of immediate life. In many mythologies the name of the principal deity is synonymous with that for wind, and in others the words “soul” and “breath” have a common origin. It has been suggested that the Hebrew Jahveh (the archaic form of Jehovah) is connected with the Arabic hawah, to blow or breathe, and that Jahveh was originally a wind or tempest god.

Our word “spiritual” is derived from the Latin spirare, to blow; the Latin animus, “spirit,” is the same word as the Greek anemos, “wind,” and psukhe has a similar origin. All are directly evolved from verbal roots expressing the motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word ruah is equivalent to both “wind” and “spirit,” as is the Egyptian kneph. If we turn to the American mythologies, nija in the language of the Dakota means “breath,” or “life”; in Netela piuts is “life,” “breath,” and “soul”; the Yakuna language of Oregon has wkrisha, “wind,” wkrish­mit, “life.” The Creeks applied to their supreme deity the [[116]]name Esaugetuh Emissee, Master of Breath,[67] and the original name for God in Choctaw was Hustoli, the Storm Wind. “In the identity of wind with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of soul with God, lies the far deeper and truer reason,” says Brinton, “of the prominence given to wind-gods in many mythologies.”[68]

But although Tezcatlipocâ was the Giver of Life, he was also regarded as a deity with power to take it away. In fact at times he appeared as an inexorable death-dealer, and in this guise he was named Nezahualpilli (“The Hungry Chief”) and Yaotzin (“The Enemy”). But he was also known as Telpochtli (“The Youthful Warrior”), from the fact that his reserve of strength, his vital force, never grew less and was boisterously apparent, as in the tempest. As the wind at night rushes through the roads with more seeming violence than it does by day, so was Tezcatlipocâ pictured in the Aztec consciousness as rioting along the highways in search of slaughter. Indeed, seats or benches of stone, shaped like those used by the chiefs of the Mexican towns, were placed at intervals on the roads for his use, and here he was supposed to lurk, concealed by the green boughs which surrounded them, in wait for his victims. Should anyone grapple with and overcome him, he might crave whatsoever boon he desired, with the surety of its being granted. The worship of Tezcatlipocâ previous to the Conquest had so advanced, and so powerful had his cult become, that it would appear as if the movement would ultimately have led to a monotheism or worship of one god equivalent to that of the cult of Jahveh, the God of the Old Testament among the ancient Hebrews. To his priestly caste is credited the invention of many of the usages of civilized life, and it succeeded in making his worship universal. The Nahua people regarded the other gods as objects of special devotion, but the worship of Tezcatlipocâ was general. [[117]]

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