V
Out of the Tlalocan the turquoise house (the blue house)
Came thy father, Acatonal.
[[244]]
VI
O go, go down on the mountain Poyauhtlan
With the mist rattle-board;
Water will be sent from Tlalocan,
The country of the rain-gods.
VII
O my elder brother Toxcuecuex!
I will go; it is enough to make him weep.
VIII
O send me to the place that no one knows.
Down came his word;
I spoke to him, Tetzauhpilli,
I will go; that is enough to make him weep.
IX
After four years he will be placed over us.
Of thee it was said,
The place of the fallen,
The quetzal feather-house, the place of plenty,
And yet he becomes distributer for the Kingdom.
It would be rash to attempt any precise elucidation of this obscure song. Briefly and doubtfully, I may say, it seems to me that its tendency is as follows: The song evidently refers to one of the festivals of the Rain-god, probably the atemoztli, when much time was occupied in “rain-making” ceremonies, as the canticle indicates. The pious maker of the song had evidently in mind the myth which told how Tlaloc stole the maize from Quetzalcoatl, an assertion to which he objects (verse iii), and advises the god to withhold his produce. This myth, which is given in the Anales de Quauhtitlan (Codex Chimalpopocâ), the second or historical portion, states that Quetzalcoatl discovered maize in the mountain Tonacatepetl. To do so, he took the form of a black ant and was led to the spot by a red ant. As he was unable to lift the mountain, it was split open by the magical prowess of Xolotl in his phase of Nanahuatl and the maize was secured by Quetzalcoatl, but was stolen from him by Tlaloc. In verse iv of the song under discussion Tlaloc replies in agreement with his servant, whom it is, perhaps, that he [[245]]addresses as Jaguar-serpent, Jaguar (Balam), being a common designation of priests among the Maya-Quiche.[6] Or it may have reference to the god himself, one of whose names is “Nine Jaguar.”
The god would seem to refer to some unknown myth relating to his own parentage in verse v. The name Acatonal (“Reed of the Sun”) given to his father seems to have a calendric significance. The ceremony of the mist rattle-board, the rattling of which was supposed to bring rain by sympathetic magic, was one of the ceremonies connected with rain-making at more than one of the festivals of the Tlaloquê. Poyauhtlan (“Place of Mugwort”) is a district of Tlalocan, as well as the name of his temple, and Toxcuecuex is Uitzilopochtli. The last verse seems to allude to the myth mentioned in the interpretation of Codex Vaticanus A, where it is stated that, as no rain had fallen for a period of four years, Quetzalcoatl began to make sacrifices to obtain it, and, the worshipper or priest hints, will receive the consequent honour.
According to Boturini, quoting Gemelli Carreri (tom. 6, p. 83), Tlaloc was the deity who at the behest of Tezcatlipocâ raised the earth out of the waters of the universal flood, and who counsels men by his divine messages written in the lightning and the thunderbolt to live wisely and morally. Like most of the theories of this writer, this is pure allegory. Following the analogy of the calendar stone, we seem to see Tlaloc as the sun during the period of Naui Quiauitl, or “Four Rain,” which ended in a universal conflagration. The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A alludes to Tlaloc as feminine, speaks of him as “goddess of water,” and explains Tlaloquê as signifying “fine weather.” Farther on he states that “on the 21st of December they celebrated the festival of this god through whose instrumentality they say the earth became again visible after it had been covered with the waters of the deluge; they therefore kept his festival during the twenty following signs, in which they performed sacrifices to him.” [[246]]
The abode of Tlaloc was in Tlalocan, the heights on the road from Texcuco to Huetzotzinca and Tlaxcallan, a high and shady place.[7] This locality remained verdant and moist because of its proximity to the snowy peaks above it even when the plains beneath languished in drought under merciless sunshine, and it seems natural that it should have appealed to the ancient Mexicans as a fitting abode for the god of rain. Of Tlalocan in its more mythical sense, Sahagun (c. ii, Appendix to bk. iii) says that there was abundance of all refreshments, green maize, calabashes, and other vegetables and fruits. Here dwelt the Tlaloquê, who resembled the priests who ministered to their idols in that they wore their hair long. The folk who went to that paradise were those who had been killed by lightning, the leprous, gouty, and dropsical—any such, in fact, who had died from a “watery” complaint. In Tlalocan they enjoyed a perpetual summer.
FESTIVALS
Quaitl eloa.—The first annual festival to the Tlaloquê was the quaitl eloa, of which Sahagun says: “In the first days of the first month of the year, which month was called in some parts of Mexico quavitleloa, but generally atlacahualco, and begins on the second of our February, a great feast was made in honour of the Tlalocs, gods of rain and water. For this occasion many children at the breast were purchased from their mothers; those being chosen that had two whorls in their hair, and that had been born under a good sign; it being said that such were the most agreeable sacrifices to the storm-gods, and most likely to induce them to send rain in due season. Some of these infants were butchered for this divine holiday on certain mountains, and some were drowned in the Lake of Mexico. With the beginning of the festival, in every house, from the hut to the palace, certain poles were set up, and to these were attached strips of the [[247]]paper of the country, daubed over with indiarubber gum, these strips being called amateteuitl; this was considered an honour to the water-gods. And the first place where children were killed was Quauhtepetl,[8] a high mountain in the neighbourhood of Tlatelulco; all infants, boys or girls, sacrificed there were called by the name of the place, Quauhtepetl, and were decorated with strips of paper, dyed red. The second place where children were killed was Yoaltecatl,[9] a high mountain near Guadalupe. The victims were decorated with pieces of black paper with red lines on it, and were named after the place, Yoaltecatl. The third death-halt was made at Tepetzingo, a well-known hillock that rose up from the waters of the lake opposite Tlatelulco; there they killed a little girl, decking her with blue paper, and calling her Quezalxoch,[10] for so was this hillock called by another name. Poiauhtla,[11] on the boundary of Tlascala, was the fourth hill of sacrifice. Here they killed children, named as usual after the locality, and decorated with paper, on which were lines of indiarubber oil. The fifth place of sacrifice was the whirlpool or sink of the Lake of Mexico, Pantitlan.[12] Those drowned here were called Epcoatl,[13] and their adornment epuepaniuhqui.[14] The sixth hill of death was Cocotl,[15] near Chalcoatenco; the infant victims were named after it and decorated with strips of paper, of which half the number were red and half a tawny colour. The mount Yiauhqueme,[16] near Atlacuioaia, was the seventh station; the victims being named after the place and adorned with a paper of tawny colour.
“When the procession reached the temple near Tepetzinco, on the east, called Tozoacab, the priests rested there all night, watching and singing songs, so that the children could not sleep. In the morning the march was again resumed; if the children wept copiously those around them were very glad, saying it was a sign that much rain would fall; while [[248]]if they met any dropsical person on the road, it was taken for a bad omen and something that would hinder the rain. If any of the temple ministers, or of the others called quaquavitli, or of the old men, broke off from the procession or turned back to their houses before they came to the place where the sacrifice was done, they were held infamous and unworthy of any public office; thenceforward they were called mocauhque, that is to say, ‘deserters.’ ”[17]
Tozozontli.—The second festival to Tlaloc was tozozontli, of which Sahagun says:
“The third month was designated toçozontli, the first day of it being consecrated to the festival of the god Tlaloc, who is the divinity of rain. Many children were slain on the mountains and offered in sacrifice to this god and his colleagues, in order to obtain water. The first fruits of the flowers of the year were offered in the temple called Yopico, no one daring to smell a flower until this offering had been made. The gardeners, who were designated xochimanque, held a festival in honour of their goddess called Coatlicue, also known as Coatlan tonan.
“It was likewise during this month that those who had been wearing the skins of the dead since the month previous, now stripped them off and threw them into the basin of the temple styled Yopico. This was done in procession and with great ceremony. They smelt like rotten dogs; and after disrobing they performed devotional ablutions.
“Sick people made vows to take part in this procession in the hope of being cured of their infirmities, and we are assured that many of them were thus restored.
“The masters of the captives and the people of their houses performed penance for twenty days, neither bathing nor washing until the skins of their victims had been carried to the basin of the temple above mentioned, and alleging their penance was in honour of their captives.
“The period of penance being over, they bathed and washed, and invited their neighbours and friends to banquets, performing elaborate ceremonies with the bones of their dead [[249]]slaves. These twenty days until the following month were entirely spent in singing in the buildings called cuicacalli, everyone being always seated, without dancing, and incessantly chanting the praises of their deities. Other rites were performed, an account of which will be given in the chapter dealing with them.”[18]
Etzalqualiztli.—The third festival to the Tlaloquê generally was the etzalqualiztli. Concerning this feast Sahagun relates:
“On the first day of this month a festival was held in honour of the gods of rain. The priests of these divinities fasted for four days prior to the festival, these days consequently being the last four of the previous month. On the occasion of these celebrations the attendant satellites of the idols repaired to Citlaltepec to pull the rushes which grow very high and very beautifully in a pond called Temilco. From thence they carried them to Mexico, to decorate the temples. No one was to be seen on the road which they traversed; everyone took care to hide in case they should meet them. But if, unfortunately, the priests encountered anyone on the road, they stripped him of everything, leaving him naked as a worm, and should he dare to defend himself, he was maltreated and left for dead upon the highway. Even had he carried the treasure of Moteuhçoma and been robbed of it, it is quite certain that no punishment would have fallen upon them, for, in their capacity as priests of the idols, they were at liberty to do such things and worse without fear of consequences.
“On the day of the festival of etzalqualiztli, everyone prepared cakes or a broth called etzalli, which was considered as a delicacy among them, everybody partaking of them at home, and sharing the repast with visitors. A thousand follies were perpetrated on that day.
“On the occasion of this festival those priests of the idols who had committed faults in the exercise of their functions were terribly punished on the waters of the lake. They were maltreated to the point of being left for dead on the [[250]]banks of the lake, whither their parents or relatives repaired to take them home almost lifeless.
“Death was also inflicted on a great number of captives and slaves dressed in the trappings of the god Tlaloc, in whose temples they were slain in their honour; the hearts of those unfortunates were then thrown into the gaping hole in the middle of the lake, which was at that time quite visible.[19] Many other rites were performed as well.”[20]
Tepeilhuitl.—The fourth festival to the gods of the water-giving mountains was the tepeilhuitl. Sahagun says of this:
“During this month festivals were held in honour of the high mountains which were the point of departure of the clouds, and which are very numerous in this land of New Spain. To each of these a statue in human form was erected out of a paste called tzoalli, and offerings were made to these idols in honour of these mountains.
“Serpents were also made in their honour out of wood or the roots of trees, which were so carved as to terminate in an adder’s head. Long pieces of wood of the size of a fist were also made, which were called ecatotontin (“little winds”). They were smoothed on the surface with a lump of tzoalli, and were baptized as mountains, being placed upon men’s heads.
“Images were also made in memory of people who had been drowned, or of those who had died such a death as entitled their bodies to be buried instead of being burnt.
“Having placed the statues just described upon the altars with great ceremony, tamalli and many other foods were offered to them; hymns were chanted, and wine drunk in their honour.
“The day of the mountain festival having come round, four women and a man were slain. One of the women was called Tepexoch, the second Matlalque, the third Xochitecatl, the fourth Mayauel; the man bore the name of Milnauatl.[21] These women, as well as the man, were decked with paper [[251]]anointed with ulli gum, and certain females, richly dressed, carried them in litters upon their shoulders to the place where they were to be killed.
“After they were slain and their hearts torn out, they were taken slowly away, being dragged down the temple stairs to the bottom, where their heads were cut off and placed upon wooden pikes, while their bodies were taken to the calpulli[22] and there divided for eating. The papers with which the statues were decorated were hung up in the temples, after the statues had been broken up for food.”[23]
Atemoztli.—On the sixteenth month, atemoztli, the people celebrated the Rain-god’s festival in right good earnest. Says Sahagun[24]:
“The sixteenth month was called atemoztli, that is to say the rain month, when the thunder and heavy rains began to display themselves. The people said, ‘Now the Tlaloquê come.’
“At this time the priests began to pray earnestly for rain, doing penance the while. Taking their censers of serpent-headed brass, they threw the incense called yiauhtli, they rang little bells attached to the censer, and censed all the statues of the gods and all the quarters of the town. As on another occasion, they made images of the mountains during the time they fasted, and prepared the paper usually used in these ceremonies. During five days when they bathed themselves they permitted no water to fall upon the head or to go above the neck. They also abstained from women. The night which preceded the atemoztli, which they celebrated on the twentieth day of the month, they occupied in cutting the paper, which they gummed with ulli, and which was then called teteuitl. These they attached to long poles, which they planted in the courts of the houses, where they remained during the day of the feast. The paste images they made represented the mountains surrounding the valley of Anahuac. These were placed in the oratory of the house, where they were offered food, and people sat in front of them, serving them in tiny vessels full of food, little pots and [[252]]vessels of cocoa and food, which were offered four times a night. Nor was an offering of pulque forgotten. They sang all night before these images, and played on the flute. At daybreak the priests asked the people of the house for a tzotzo paztli, or weaver’s bodkin, with which they opened the stomachs of the images. They also beheaded them and drew out their hearts, which they handed to the master of the house in a green porringer. They then stripped them of the paper with which they were decked, which they burned in the court of the house along with the viands offered to the images.”[25]
Camargo, who had witnessed the festivals to Tlaloc thirty years before writing his book, states that[26] when the rain failed and the land was parched with drought, great processions were made in which a number of the hairless edible dogs of the country were carried on decorated litters to a place of sacrifice and there killed and their hearts cut out, after which the bodies were eaten with much festivity. This, of course, related to a period subsequent to the Conquest, when human sacrifice was forbidden. He further states that old Aztec priests had informed him that the hearts of the human beings sacrificed to Tlaloc were first held up to the sun, then to the remaining three cardinal points, after which they were burned. Tlaloc was held in high respect, and priests alone had the right to enter his temple. Whoever dared to blaspheme against him was supposed to die suddenly by a thunderbolt, no matter how clear the sky may have been. The priests, he adds, took good care to retard his festivals until they saw indication of coming rain.
TEMPLES AND PLACES OF WORSHIP
The earliest recorded place of worship of this deity is that spoken of by Clavigero[27] in one of the few enlightening passages which he permits himself, as follows: [[253]]
“The native historians relate, that the Acolhuas having arrived in that country in the time of Xolotl, the first Chichimecan king, found at the top of the mountain of Tlaloc, an image of that god, made of a white and very light stone, in the shape of a man sitting upon a square stone, with a vessel before him, in which was some elastic gum, and a variety of seeds. This was their yearly offering by way of rendering up their thanks, after having had a favourable harvest. That image was reckoned the oldest in the country; for it had been placed upon that hill by the ancient Toltecas and remained till the end of the XVth or beginning of the XVIth century, when Nezahualpilli, King of Acollhuacan, in order to gain the favour of his subjects, carried it away and placed another in its stead, of a very hard, black stone. The new image, however, being defaced by lightning, and the priests declaring it to be a punishment from heaven, the ancient statue was restored, and there continued to be preserved and worshipped, until the promulgation of the gospel, when it was thrown down and broken by order of the first Bishop of Mexico.”
The principal seat of the worship of Tlaloc was the great temple of Uitzilopochtli at Mexico, which is fully described in the section which deals with that god.
Sahagun speaks (Appendix to bk. ii) of a temple within the sacred precinct of Mexico which was especially dedicated to the Tlaloquê. This was the epcoatl (“pearl serpent”), so called, perhaps, from the circumstance that the victims immolated therein were known by the same name. It was in this place that the priests fasted and did penance for forty days before the feast in honour of their gods. The Mexico Calmecac was a school or junior monastery, where those who were destined to become priests of the god received their training. At the acatla yiacapan uei calpulli (“chief flowery hall”) the slaves intended for sacrifice to the god were assembled, and here their bodies were prepared for the horrid banquet which concluded his festival. [[254]]
PRIESTHOOD
The Tlaloc Tlamacasque, the second in rank in the Mexican priesthood, stood at the head of the ministers of the god. The acolnauacatl acolmiztli (“he of the puma shoulder” or “dress”) made all arrangements for the festivals of the god, and kept the vestments worn by the king on these occasions. It is also clear from many passages that the priesthood of Tlaloc composed a large and considerable body.
PRAYERS
Sahagun[28] gives at great length a most striking prayer to Tlaloc made in time of drought by the priests in hope of rain. It asks for compassion from the Tlaloquê, who, along with their sister, Chalchiuhtlicue, have withdrawn their faces from mankind. It describes the wretchedness of the people, tells how they perish of thirst, and draws a harrowing picture of the sufferings of the children. It requests Tlaloc to assist the god of earth with rain, so that the vegetables and plants may grow and not perish. It also asks that the rain may be of the kind which assists growth, and that it be not accompanied by hail or lightning, the usual manifestation of the wrath of the Tlaloquê. “You who are gods of the water, who dwell at the east, west, north, and south of the world, who inhabit the subterranean places, the air, the mountains and the profound caverns, hasten to the consolation of man.”
NATURE AND STATUS
There is less doubt concerning the character of Tlaloc than that of any other Mexican deity. The representations of him in the manuscripts, the prayers offered up to him, the myths which seek to explain him, all make it clear that he is the god of the rain-cult par excellence, to whom even Quetzalcoatl, the deified rain-maker, in time becomes merely “a sweeper of the ways.” The etymological derivation of the name has been frequently essayed. Tlaloc, says [[255]]Seler, is a noun derived from the verb tlaloa, “to hasten,” which in its reflexive sense means “to shoot up,” “to sprout,” so that the name really conveys the sense of “He who makes things sprout,” “He who hastens growth.” He is, indeed, the god of rain, of moisture, who dwells on the mountain peaks, and manifests himself in the lightning and the thunder, both of which are symbolized in the serpentine folds of his countenance and in its darksome hues. His progeny are the Tlaloquê, who dwell on every mountain top, dwarfish servants who pour forth the rain out of the great jars which stand in his courtyard. “When they beat these with the sticks they carry, it thunders, and when it lightens a piece of the jug falls.”[29]
The name Tlaloc was specially given by the Mexicans to a mountain to the east of Tezcuco, near the pass which led to Huetzotzinco, and here it was that his most ancient idol was found by the immigrant tribes. The mountains Popocatepetl and Teocuinaui were also especially sacred to him. He possessed, as will have been observed, both beneficent and terrible aspects, and was the striker, the slayer, as well as the giver of bounteous food-supplies. That his cult was an ancient one in Mexico is proved by the numerous finds of his images among remains of pre-Aztec date at Teotihuacan, at Teotitlan in the Huaxtec country, at Quiengola in the Zapotec district, and at Quen Santo in Guatemala.
Tlaloc denotes the four quarters from which the rain comes, as his symbolism abundantly shows, and the learned priests of Mexico undoubtedly regarded him as the personification of the tlequiauitl, or fire-rain, the disaster which closed one of the epochs of the prehistoric world. He is further analogous to the Maya Chac and God B.
His chief significance for the ancient Mexicans was as the great god of the rain-cult, the rain itself, and the thunderstorm which brings the rain. In his serpentine form we may, perhaps, see a reminiscence of the mythical beast of dragon or serpentine form known to many mythologies as the “water-provider,” which must be slain by the sun-hero ere the rain-flood [[256]]is released to assist the growth of the crops. None of the myths relating to him serve to assist such a hypothesis; but certain paintings in the codices appear to relate to some such myth, and page 74 of the Maya Dresden Codex, which relates to the deluge caused by the water-sun, shows a great serpent vomiting water upon the earth, showing that in Central America the rain was supposed to emanate from a monster of this description.[30]
It is significant that Tlaloc wears Toltec dress, and from this and from his name “Nine Jaguar” we may be justified in concluding that he is in a sense to be regarded, like Quetzalcoatl, as the Toltec priest. Balam, the Maya-Quiche word for jaguar, signifies also “priest,” and that the title was superadded to the serpentine conception of him is shown by the expression “Jaguar-serpent,” by which he is alluded to in the hymn quoted above. The Poyauhtlan was not only his temple, but a district of Tlalocan, where he was supposed to hold sway. This I would translate “Place of the Mugwort,” or “Absinthe,” and it is clear that he, as well as Chalchihuitlicue, his spouse, has some mysterious connection with this plant, which has been shown by Dr. Rendel Harris to have been the especial medicine-plant of the Greek Artemis. It is strange, too, to find both the god and his victims, like the dragon-gods of China, connected with the pearl.
Tlaloc is also god of the four quarters or four “weathers.” The seventh day-sign, mazatl (“deer”), which he takes, is appropriate, as the deer symbolizes the quest for water and vegetation. His association with the dog, the lightning-beast, is also significant. Indeed in Codex Bologna Tlaloc is frequently symbolized by the lightning-flash alone.