ECLIPSES, AND THEIR EFFECT ON MAN.
The Tlascaltecs, regarding the sun and the moon as husband and wife, believed eclipses to be domestic quarrels, whose consequences were likely to be fatal to the world if peace could not be made before things proceeded to an extremity. To sooth the ruffled spirit of the sun when he was eclipsed, a human sacrifice was offered to him of the ruddiest victims that could be found; and when the moon was darkened she was appeased with the blood of those white-complexioned persons commonly known as Albinos.[III-7]
The idea of averting the evil by noise, in case of an eclipse either of the sun or moon, seems to have been a common one among other American tribes. Alegre ascribes it to the natives of Sonora in general. Ribas tells how the Sinaloas held that the moon in an eclipse was darkened with the dust of battle. Her enemy had come upon her, and a terrible fight, big with consequence to those on earth, went on in heaven. In wild excitement the people beat on the sides of their houses, encouraging the moon and shooting flights of arrows up into the sky to distract her adversary. Much the same as this was also done by certain Californians.[III-8]
With regard to an eclipse of the moon the Mexicans seem to have had rather special ideas as to its effects upon unborn children. At such times, women who were with child became alarmed lest their infant should be turned into a mouse, and to guard against such an undesirable consummation they held a bit of obsidian, iztli, in their mouth, or put a piece of it in their girdle, so that the child should be born perfect and not lipless, or noseless, or wry-mouthed, or squinting, or a monster.[III-9] These ideas are probably connected with the fact that the Mexicans worshiped the moon under the name of Meztli, as a deity presiding over human generations. This moon-god is considered by Clavigero to be identical with Joaltecutli, god of night.[III-10]
It is to the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, however, that we must turn for a truly novel and cyclopean theory of Mexican lunolatry. He sees back to a time when the forefathers of American civilization lived in a certain Crescent Land in the Atlantic; here they practiced Sabaism. Through some tremendous physical catastrophe their country was utterly overwhelmed by the sea; and this inundation is considered by the abbé to be the origin of the deluge-myths of the Central-American nations. A remnant of these Crescent people saved themselves in the seven principal islands of the Lesser Antilles; these are, he explains, the seven mythical caves or grottoes celebrated in so many American legends as the cradle of the nations. The saved remnant of the people wept the loss of their friends and of their old land, making the latter, with its crescent shape, memorable forever by adopting the moon as their god. "It is the moon," writes the great Américaniste, "male and female, Luna and Lunas, personified in the land of the Crescent, engulfed in the abyss, that I believe I see at the commencement of this amalgam of rites and symbols of every kind."[III-11] I confess inability to follow the path by which the abbé has reached this conclusion; but I have indicated its whereabouts, and future students may be granted a further insight into this new labyrinth and the subtleties of its industrious Dædalus.
WHAT THE MEXICANS THOUGHT OF STARS AND COMETS.
The Mexicans had many curious ideas about the stars, some of which have come down to us. They particularly reverenced a certain group of three called mamalhoaztli, in, or in the neighborhood of, the sign Taurus of the zodiac. This name was the same as that of the sticks from which fire was procured: a resemblance of some kind being supposed to exist between them and these stars. Connected again with this was the burning by every male Mexican of certain marks upon his wrist, in honor of the same stars; it being believed that the man who died without these marks should, on his arrival in hades, be forced to draw fire from his wrist by boring upon it as on a fire-stick. The planet Venus was worshiped as the first light that appeared in the world, as the god of twilight, and, according to some, as being identical with Quetzalcoatl. This star has been further said to borrow its light from the moon, and to rise by four starts. Its first twinkle was a bad augury, and to be closed out of all doors and windows; on appearing for the third time, it began to give a steady light, and on the fourth it shone forth in all its clearness and brilliancy.
Comets were called each citlalinpopoca, or the smoking star; their appearance was considered as a public disaster, and as announcing pest, dearth, or the death of some prince. The common people were accustomed to say of one, This is our famine, and they believed it to cast down certain darts, which falling on any animal, bred a maggot that rendered the creature unfit for food. All possible precautions of shelter were of course taken by persons in positions exposed to the influence of these noxious rays. Besides the foregoing, there were many stars or groups of stars whose names were identical with those of certain gods; the following seem to belong to this class: Tonacatlecutli or Citlalalatonalli, the milky way; Yzacatecutli, Tlahvizcalpantecutli, Ceyacatl, Achitumetl, Xacupancalqui, Mixcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Contemoctli.[III-12]
I have already noticed a prevailing tendency to connect the worship of fire and that of the sun. The rites of a perpetual fire are found closely connected with a sun-cult, and, whichever may be the older, it is certain they are rarely found apart. "What," says Tylor, "the sea is to Water-worship, in some measure the Sun is to Fire-worship."[III-13] Brinton would reverse this and give to fire the predominance: in short, he says, the sun "is always spoken of as a fire;" "and without danger or error we can merge the consideration of its worship almost altogether in this element."[III-14] This sounds rather extravagant and is hardly needed in any case; for sufficient reason for its deification can always be found in its mysterious nature and awful powers of destruction, as well as in its kind and constantly renewed services, if gratitude have any power in making a god. The mere guarding and holding sacred a particular fire probably originated in the importance of possessing an unfailing source of the element, and in the difficulty of its production if allowed to die out, among men not possessed of the appliances of civilization.