The sun, moon, and stars are thought to be powers connected with rain and fine weather; while the god Montezuma of their Pueblo neighbors is unknown among them.[V-33]
MONTEZUMA OF THE PUEBLOS.
All the Pueblo cities, though speaking different languages hold substantially the same faith. They seem to assent to the statement of the existence of a great and good spirit whose name is too sacred to be mentioned; but most say that Montezuma is his equal; and some, again, that the Sun is the same as or equal to Montezuma. There are, besides, the lesser divinities of water—Montezuma being considered in one aspect as the great rain-god, and as such often mentioned as being aided by or being in connection with a serpent. Over and above all these, the existence of a general class or body of evil spirits is taken for granted.
Many places in New Mexico claim to be the birthplace of the great leader, teacher, and god Montezuma. At any rate he is traditionally supposed to have appeared among the Pueblos before they had arrived at or built their present towns. Some traditions would make him either the ancestor or the creator of the same people; but the most regard him as a kind of semi or wholly divine priest, prophet, leader, and legislator. Under restrictions pointed out in a former note,[V-34] we may fairly regard him as at once the Melchizedek, the Moses, and the Messiah of these Pueblo desert wanderers from an Egypt that history is ignorant of, and whose name even tradition whispers not. He taught his people to build cities with tall houses, to construct estufas, or semi-sacred sweat-houses, and to kindle and guard the sacred fire.
At Acoma, it is said by some, was established the first Pueblo, and thence the people marched southward, forming others. Acoma was one, and Pecos another. At this last, Montezuma planted a tree upside down, and said that, on his leaving them, a strange nation should oppress them for many years, years also in which there should be no rain, but that they were to persist in watching the sacred fire until the tree fell, when he would return, with a white race which should destroy their enemies; and then rain should fall again and the earth be fertile. It is said that this tree fell from its abnormal position, as the American army entered Santa Fé.
HE IS NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPETH.
The watching of the fire, kept up in subterranean estufas, under a covering of ashes generally, and in the basin of a small altar, was no light task. The warriors took the post by turns, some said, for two successive days and nights, sans food, sans drink, sans sleep, sans everything. Others affirm that this watching was kept up till exhaustion and even death relieved the guard—the last not to be wondered at, seeing the insufferable closeness of the place and the accumulation of carbonic acid. The remains of the dead were, it was sometimes supposed, carried off by a monstrous serpent. This holy fire was believed to be the palladium of the city, and the watchers by it could well dream of that day, when, coming with the sun, Montezuma should descend by the column of smoke whose roots they fed, and should fill the shabby little estufa with a glory like that in a wilderness tabernacle they knew not of, where a more awful pillar of smoke shadowed the mystic cherubim. Hope dies hard, and the dim memories of a great past never quite fade away from among any people. No true-born British bard ever doubted of Arthur's return from his kingly rest in Avalon, nor that the flash of Excalibar should be one day again as the lightning of death in the eyes of the hated Saxon. The herders on the shore of Lucerne know that were Switzerland in peril, the Tell would spring from his sleep as at the crack of doom. "When Germany is at her lowest then is her greatness nearest" say the weird old ballads of that land; for then shall the Great Kaiser rise from the vault in the Kyffhäuser—Barbarossa shall rise, though his beard be grown through the long stone table. Neither is the Frank without his savior: Sing, O troubadours, sing and strike the chords proudly! Who shall prevail while Charlemagne but sleeps in the shadow of the Untersberg?—And so our Pueblo sentinel climbing the housetop at Pecos, looking ever eastward from Santo Domingo on the Rio Grande; he too waits for the beautiful feet upon the mountains and the plumes of him—
Who dwelt up in the yellow sun,
And sorrowing for man's despair,
Slid by his trailing yellow hair