TZITZIMIMÊ = “MONSTERS DESCENDING FROM ABOVE”
- Minor Name: Petlacotzitzquique = “Upholders of the Cane Carpet.”
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ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Certain wall-paintings at Mitla afford a good representation of the Tzitzimimê, who are represented as pulling the sun out of his cave by a rope. In this case their character as stellar deities or demons is well exemplified. The face often resembles that of a death’s-head and the hair is puffed up in wig fashion. In Codex Borgia the Tzitzimimê are represented as female figures with death’s-heads and jaguar-claws.
The insects pictured in the Codex Borbonicus are unquestionably representations of the Tzitzimimê gods in their demon forms.
MYTHS
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A equates them with the gods of Mictlampa, or Hades, but his contemporary who edited the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says of them:
“The proper signification of this name is the fall of the demons, who, they say, were stars; and even still there are stars in heaven called after their names, which are the following: Yzcatecaztli, Tlahvezcal pantecuvtli, Ceyacatl, Achitumetl, Xacupancalqui, Mixauhmatl, Tezcatlipocâ, and Contemoctli. These were their appellations as gods before they fell from heaven, but they are now named Tzitzimitli, which means something monstrous or dangerous.”
Tezozomoc mentions them in his Cronica Mexicana in connection with the building of the great temple at Mexico. He states that their images were at one period still necessary for the completion of the building, and alludes to them as “angels of the air, holding up the sky,” and “the gods of the air who draw down the rains, waters, clouds, thunders and lightnings, and who are placed round Uitzilopochtli.” He further says that these “gods of the signs and planets” were brought to the sacred edifice and placed round the idol of Uitzilopochtli.
NATURE AND STATUS
The Tzitzimimê are obviously stellar deities. A myth [[326]]seems to have existed that they had been cast out of heaven, and may perhaps be equated with that relating to Xochiquetzal. I think, too, that it had a connection with the myth which told how Uitzilopochtli routed the Centzonuitznaua, his brothers, who were also stellar deities or demons of darkness. That the Tzitzimimê were so regarded was probably because they were seen during the night, or perhaps during eclipses. The list of them includes many of the great gods, especially those who had an uncanny significance, as Tepeyollotl, Mictlantecutli, Tlazolteotl, Tezcatlipocâ, and Itzpapalotl. The Tzitzimimê are equated by Seler with the Sky Supporters.[9] [[327]]
[1] See Sahagun, bk. vii, cs. x–xiii, for a much more detailed description. [↑]
[2] See Sahagun, bk. iii, Appendix, c. iv. [↑]
[3] Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, Preface, in Izcazbalceta, vol. i, 1858, pp. 7, 10. [↑]
[4] Izcazbalceta, vol. iii, 1891, p. 237. [↑]
[5] Appendix to bk. i, c. xiv. [↑]
[6] Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 190. [↑]
[7] Commentary on Codex Vaticanus B, p. 287. [↑]
[8] Bulletin 28 of U.S. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 355 ff. [↑]
[9] See Commentary on the Codex Vaticanus B, p. 90. It seems to me that, as Tezozomoc says, these were gods of the “signs and planets,” i.e. of the tonalamatl in its augural or astrological sense. If so, the definitely astrological nature of the tonalamatl might be argued therefrom. [↑]