"To the most ancient gods," says Klemm, "belonged the divinities of nature, as well as a highest being called Teotl, God. He was perfect, independent, and invisible, and consequently not represented by any image. His qualities were represented by expressions like these: He through whom we live, He who is all in himself. This god coincides very nearly with the Master of Life of the North Americans. In opposition to him is the evil spirit, the enemy of mankind, who often appears to and terrifies them. He is called Tlacatecololotl, that is to say, Rational Owl, and may possibly, like the Lame-foot of the Peruvians, be a survival from the times when the old hunter-nations inhabited the forests and mountains. Next to Teotl was Tezcatlipoca, that is to say, Shining Mirror; he was the god of providence, the soul of the world, and the creator of heaven and earth. Teotl was not represented by any image, and was probably not worshiped with offerings nor in any special temples; Tezcatlipoca was, however, so represented, and that as a youth, because time could have no power over his beauty and his splendor. He rewarded the righteous, and punished the ungodly with sickness and misfortune. He created the world, and mankind, and the sun, and the water, and he was himself in a certain degree the overseer thereof."[VI-11]
TLOQUE-NAHUAQUE.
The Abbé Brasseur believes in the knowledge by the Mexicans and certain neighboring or related nations, of a Supreme God; but he thinks also that the names of great priests and legislators have often been used for or confounded with the one Name above every name. He says: "In the traditions that have reached us the name of the legislator is often confused with that of the divinity; and behind the symbolic veil that covers primitive history, he who civilized and brought to light in the Americans a new life, is designedly identified with the Father of the universal creation. The writers who treat of the history of the ancient American nations avow that, at the time of the landing of the Spaniards on the soil of the western continent, there was not one that did not recognize the existence of a supreme deity and arbiter of the universe. In that confusion of religious ideas, which is the inevitable result of ignorance and superstition, the notion of a unique immaterial being, of an invisible power, had survived the shipwreck of pure primitive creeds. Under the name Tloque-Nahuaque, the Mexicans adored Him who is the first cause of all things, who preserves and sustains all by his providence; calling him again, for the same reason, Ipalnemoaloni, He in whom and by whom we are and live. This god was the same as that Kunab-Ku, the Alone Holy, who was adored in Yucatan; the same again as that Hurakan, the Voice that Cries, the Heart of Heaven, found with the Guatemalan nations of Central America; and the same lastly as that Teotl, God, whom we find named in the Tzendal and Mexican books. This "God of all purity," as he was styled in a Mexican prayer, was, however, too elevated for the thoughts of the vulgar. His existence was recognized, and sages invoked him; but he had neither temples nor altars—perhaps because no one knew how he should be represented—and it was only in the last times of the Aztec monarchy that Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, dedicated to him a teocalli of nine terraces, without statues, under the title of the unknown god."[VI-12]
Mr Gallatin says of the Mexicans: "Their mythology, as far as we know it, presents a great number of unconnected gods, without apparent system or unity of design. It exhibits no evidence of metaphysical research or imaginative powers. Viewed only as a development of the intellectual faculties of man, it is, in every respect, vastly inferior to the religious systems of Egypt, India, Greece, or Scandinavia. If imported, it must have been from some barbarous country, and brought directly from such country to Mexico, since no traces of a similar worship are found in the more northern parts of America."[VI-13]
"The Aztecs," writes Prescott, "recognized the existence of a Supreme Creator and Lord of the Universe. But the idea of unity—of a being, with whom volition is action, who has no need of inferior ministers to execute his purposes—was too simple, or too vast, for their understandings; and they sought relief as usual, in a plurality of deities, who presided over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various occupations of man. Of these, there were thirteen principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior; to each of whom some special day, or appropriate festival, was consecrated."[VI-14]
PRIMITIVE WORSHIP.
According to Mr Squier: "The original deities of the Mexican pantheon are few in number. Thus when the Mexicans engaged in a war, in defense of the liberty or sovereignty of their country, they invoked the War God, under his aspect and name Huitzlipochtli. When suddenly attacked by enemies, they called upon the same god, under his aspect and name of Paynalton, which implied God of Emergencies, etc. In fact, as already elsewhere observed, all the divinities of the Mexican, as of every other mythology, resolve themselves into the primeval God and Goddess."[VI-15]
"The population of Central America," says the Vicomte de Bussierre, "although they had preserved the vague notion of a superior eternal God and creator, known by the name Teotl, had an Olympus as numerous as that of the Greeks and the Romans. It would appear—the most ancient, though, unfortunately, also the most obscure legends being followed—that during the civilized period which preceded the successive invasions of the barbarous hordes of the north, the inhabitants of Anáhuac joined to the idea of a supreme being the worship of the sun and the moon, offering them flowers, fruits, and the first fruits of their fields. The most ancient monuments of the country, such as the pyramids of Teotihuacan, were incontestably consecrated to these luminaries. Let us now trace some of the most striking features of these people. Among the number of their gods, is found one represented under the figure of a man eternally young, and considered as the symbol of the supreme and mysterious God. Two other gods there were, watching over mortals from the height of a celestial city, and charged with the accomplishment of their prayers. Air, earth, fire, and water had their particular divinities. The woman of the serpent, the prolific woman, she who never gave birth but to twins, was adored as the mother of the human race. The sun and the moon had their altars. Various divinities presided over the phenomena of nature, over the day, the night, the mist, the thunder, the harvest, the mountains, and so on. Souls, the place of the dead, warriors, hunters, merchants, fishing, love, drunkenness, medicine, flowers, and many other things had their special gods. A multitude of heroes and of illustrious kings, whose apotheosis had been decreed, took their place in this vast pantheon, where were besides seated two hundred and sixty divinities of inferior rank, to each of whom nevertheless one of the days of the year was consecrated. Lastly, every city, every family, every individual, had its or his celestial protector, to whom worship was rendered. The number of the temples corresponded to that of the gods; these temples were found everywhere, in the cities, in the fields, in the woods, along the roads, and all of them had priests charged with their service. This complicated mythology was common to all the nations of Anáhuac, even to those that the empire had been unable to subjugate and with which it was at war; but each country had its favorite god, such god being to it, what Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, was to the Aztecs."[VI-16]
The Mexican religion, as summed up by Mr Brantz Mayer,[VI-17] "was a compound of spiritualism and gross idolatry; for the Aztecs believed in a Supreme Deity, whom they called Teotl, God; or Ipalnemoani, He by whom we live; or Tloque Nahuaque, He who has all in himself; while their evil spirit bore the name of Tlaleatcololotl, the Rational Owl. These spiritual beings are surrounded by a number of lesser divinities, who were probably the ministerial agents of Teotl. These were Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, and Teoyaomiqui, his spouse, whose duty it was to conduct the souls of warriors who perished in defense of their homes and religion to the 'house of the sun,' the Aztec heaven. Huitzilopochtli, or Mextli, the god of war, was the special protector of the Aztecs; and devoted as they were to war, this deity was always invoked before battle, and recompensed after it by the offering of numerous captives taken in conflict."
MEXICAN RELIGION, GREEK AND ROMAN.