[VIII-31] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 49-55; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 111-124.
[VIII-32] This passage relating to the making of images of the mountains is such a chaotic jumble in the original that one is forced to use largely any constructive imagination one may possess to reproduce even a comprehensible description. I give the original; if any one can make rhyme or reason out of it by a closer following of the words of Sahagun, he shall not want the opportunity: 'Al trece mes llamaban Tepeilhuitl. En la fiesta que se hacia en este mes cubrian de masa de bledos unos palos que tenian hechos como culebras, y hacian imagenes de montes fundadas sobre unos palos hechos á manera de niños que llamaban Hecatotonti: era la imagen del monte de masa de bledos. Ponianle delante junto unas masas rollizas y larguillas de masa de bledos á manera de bezos, y estos llamaban Yomiio. Hacian estas imagenes á honra de los montes altos donde se juntan las nubes, y en memoria de los que habian muerto en agua ó heridos de rayo, y de los que no se quemaban sus cuerpos sino que los enterraban. Estos montes hacianlos sobre unos rodeos ó roscas hechas de heno atadas con zacate, y guardabanlas de un año para otro. La vigilia de esta fiesta llevaban á lavar estas roscas al rio ó á la fuente, y quando las llevaban ivanlas tañendo con unos pitos hechos de barro cocido ó con unos caracoles mariscos. Lavabanlas en unas casas ú oratorias que estaban hechos á la orilla del agua que se llama Ayauh calli. Lavabanlas con unas ojas de cañas verdes; algunos con el agua que pasaba por su casa las lavaban. En acabandolas de lavar volvianlas á su casa con la misma musica; luego hacian sobre ellas las imagenes de los montes como está dicho. Algunos hacian estas imagenes de noche antes de amanecer cerca del dia; la cabeza de cada un monte, tenia dos caras, una de persona y otra de culebra, y untaban la cara de persona con ulli derretido, y hacian unas tortillas prequeñuelas de masa de bledos amarillos, y ponianlas en las mexillas de la cara de persona de una parte y de otra; cubrianlos con unos papeles que llamaban Tetcuitli; ponianlos unas coronas en las cabezas con sus penachos. Tambien á los imagenes de los muertos las ponian sobre aquellas roscas de zacate, y luego en amaneciendo ponian estas imagenes en sus oratorios, sobre unos lechos de espadañas ó de juncias ó juncos.' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 71-2.
[VIII-33] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 71-3; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 159-162.
[VIII-34] 'Tzotzopaztli, palo ancho como cuchilla con que tupen y aprietan la tela que se texe.' Molina, Vocabulario.
[VIII-35] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 80-1; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 176-9, 198, 210. Farther notice of Tlaloc and his worship will be found in the Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, tav. xxviii., lvii., lx., lxii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 179, 190-2; Boturini, Idea, pp. 12-3, 99, 101; Amer. Ethnol. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 305; Motolinia, Hist. Ind., in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. i., pp. 32, 39, 42, 44-5; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 290, and tom. ii., pp. 45-6, 119, 121, 147, 151, 212, 251-4; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xv.; Gomara, Hist. Conq. Mex., fol. 216; Tylor's Prim. Cult., vol. ii., pp. 235, 243; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, pp. 500-4 et passim.
[IX-1] Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 493.
[IX-2] Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., pp. 16, 22, indeed says that Teteionan and Tocitzin are 'certainly different.'
[IX-3] Squier's Serpent Symbol, p. 47. A passage which makes the principal element of the character of Toci or Tocitzin that of Goddess of Discord may be condensed from Acosta, as follows: When the Mexicans, in their wanderings, had settled for a time in the territory of Culhuacan, they were instructed by their god Huitzilopochtli to go forth and make wars, and first to apotheosize, after his directions, a Goddess of Discord. Following these directions, they sent to the king of Culhuacan for his daughter to be their queen. Moved by the honor, the father sent his hapless daughter, gorgeously attired, to be enthroned. But the wiley, superstitious, and ferocious Mexicans slew the girl and flayed her, and clothed a young man in her skin, calling him 'their goddess and mother of their god,' under the name of Toccy, that is 'grand mother.' See also Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iv., p. 1004.
[IX-4] Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., pp. 16-22; Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis, lam. xii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 140; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, tav. xxx., Ib., p. 180; Humboldt, Essai Politique, tom. i., p. 217; Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. vi., p. 631. The sacrifices to Centeotl, if she be identical with the earth-mother, are illustrated by the statement of Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 81, that the Mexicans painted the earth-goddess as a frog with a bloody mouth in every joint of her body, (which frog we shall meet again by and by in a Centeotl festival) for they said that the earth devoured all things—a proof also, by the by, among others of a like kind which we shall encounter, that not to the Hindoos alone (as Mr J. G. Müller somewhere affirms), but to the Mexicans also, belonged the idea of multiplying the organs of their deities to express great powers in any given direction. The following note from the Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 179-80, illustrates the last point noticed, gives another form or relation of the goddess of sustenance, and also the origin of the name applied to the Mexican priests: 'They feign that Mayaguil was a woman with four hundred breasts, and that the gods, on account of her fruitfulness, changed her into the Maguey, which is the vine of that country, from which they make wine. She presided over these thirteen signs; but whoever chanced to be born on the first sign of the Herb, it proved unlucky to him; for they say that it was applied to the Tlamatzatzguex, who were a race of demons dwelling amongst them, who according to their account wandered through the air, from whom the ministers of their temples took their denomination. When this sign arrived, parents enjoined their children not to leave the house, lest any misfortune or unlucky accident should befall them. They believed that those who were born in Two Canes, which is the second sign, would be long lived, for they say that that sign was applied to heaven. They manufacture so many things from this plant called the Maguey, and it is so very useful in that country, that the devil took occasion to induce them to believe that it was a god, and to worship and offer sacrifices to it.'
[IX-5] Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., pp. 5-6; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethnol. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 341, 349-50, condensing from and commenting upon the codices Vaticanus and Tellerianus says: 'Tonacacigua, alias Tuchiquetzal (plucking rose), and Chicomecouatl (seven serpents); wife of Tonacatlecotle; the cause of sterility, famine, and miseries of life.... Amongst Sahagun's superior deities is found Civacoatl, the 'serpent woman,' also called Tonantzin, 'our mother;' and he, sober as he is in Scriptural allusions, calls her Eve, and ascribes to her, as the interpreters [of the codices] to Tonatacinga, all the miseries and adverse things of the world. This analogy is, if I am not mistaken, the only foundation for all the allusions to Eve and her history, before, during, and after the sin, which the interpreters have tried to extract from paintings which indicate nothing of the kind. They were certainly mistaken in saying that their Tonacacinga was also called Chicomecouatl, seven serpents. They should have said Civacoatl, the serpent woman. Chicomecoatl, instead of being the cause of sterility, famine, etc., is, according to Sahagun, the goddess of abundance, that which supplies both eating and drinking: probably the same as Tzinteotl, or Cinteotl, the goddess of maize (from centli, maize), which he does not mention. There is no more foundation for ascribing to Tonacacigua the name of Suchiquetzal.' Gama, Dos Piedras, pt i., p. 39, says in effect: Cihuacounatl, or snake woman, was supposed to have given birth to two children, male and female, whence sprung the human race. It is on this account that twins are called in Mexico cocohua, 'snakes,' or in the singular cohuatl or coatl, now vulgarly pronounced coate.