In passing, it may be said that the upper left-hand, hieroglyph of Plate XIII most probably repeats this name.
I collect from the third volume of Bancroft’s Native Races, chapter viii, such descriptions of Huitzilopochtli as he was represented among the Mexicans as will be of use to us in our comparisons. No display of learning in giving the references to the original works is necessary here, since Mr. Bancroft has placed all these in order and culled them for a use like the present. It will suffice once for all to refer the critical reader to this volume, and to express the highest sense of obligation to Mr. Bancroft’s compilation, which renders a survey of the characteristic features of the American divinities easy.
In Mexico, then, this god had, among other symbols, “five balls of feathers arranged in the form of a cross.” This was in reference to the mysterious conception of his mother through the powers of the air. The upper hieroglyph in [Fig. 52], and one of the lower ones, contain this sign: “In his right hand he had an azured staff cutte in fashion of a waving snake.” (See Plate LXI of Stephens.) “Joining to the temple of this idol there was a piece of less work, where there was another idol they called Tlaloc. These two idolls were alwayes together, for that they held them as companions and of equal power.”
To his temple “there were foure gates,” in allusion to the form of the cross. The temple was surrounded by rows of skulls (as at Copan) and the temple itself was upon a high pyramid. Solis says the war god sat “on a throne supported by a blue globe. From this, supposed to represent the heavens, projected four staves with serpents’ heads. (See Plate XXIV, Stephens.) “The image bore on its head a bird of wrought plumes,” “its right hand rested upon a crooked serpent.” “Upon the left arm was a buckler bearing five white plums arranged in form of a cross.” Sahagun describes his device as a dragon’s head, “frightful in the extreme, and casting fire out of his mouth.”
Herrara describes Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca together, and says they were “beset with pieces of gold wrought like birds, beasts, and fishes.” “For collars, they had ten hearts of men,” “and in their necks Death painted.”
Torquemada derives the name of the war god in two ways. According to some it is composed of two words, one signifying “a humming bird” and the other “a sorcerer that spits fire.” Others say that the last word means “the left hand,” so that the whole name would mean “the shining feathered left hand.” “This god it was that led out the Mexicans from their own land and brought them into Anáhuac.” Besides his regular statue, set up in Mexico, “there was another renewed every year, made of different kinds of grains and seeds, moistened with the blood of children.” This was in allusion to the nature-side of the god, as fully explained by Müller (Americanische Urreligionen).
No description will give a better idea of the general features of this god than the following cuts from Bancroft’s Native Races, which are copied from Leon y Gama, Las Dos Piedras, etc. Figs. [53] and [54] are the war god himself; [Fig. 55] is the back of the former statue on a larger scale; [Fig. 56] is the god of hell, and was engraved on the bottom of the block.
Fig. 53.—Huitzilopochtli (front). | Fig. 54.—Huitzilopochtli (side). |
